Protégé of the Red Sand
by Shisora
Summary: At a young age Naruto's dreams of becoming Hokage are ended after an attempt on his life.Now cripled Naruto has almost given up hope, until a red haired stranger comes along and offers him a chance to once again follow his dream. Rated for future chapters
1. 1 The End of a Dream

Hey there this is my first attempt at a Fanfic and I hope that this story does well and that who ever reads it enjoys my writing.

Oh and before I forget: I do not own Naruto in any way shape or form, but I'm plotting ways to get my hands on it. (insert evil diabolical laughter here)

**Chapter 1: The End of a Dream**

Konohagakure no Sato

The 10th of October, the day on which the Yondaime Hokage defeated the rampaging Kyuubi no Yoko six years prior. Most people considered it to be a wonderful day and held a celebration on it each year. However a few people did not view the 10th as a day of joyful partying, in fact one person in particular considered this day as the worst day of their life.

This person was the blonde haired blue eyed six year old known as Uzumaki Naruto, who was currently running for his life from a drunken mob.

He didn't know why they had decided to chase him, maybe they viewed him as the easiest target to release their alcohol induced rage upon, or perhaps there was another reason. He didn't know and at the moment he didn't care, he simply wanted to get away from the crowd and hide somewhere until the day was over. Which unfortunately was something easier said than done, for no matter how fast he ran he never seemed to outdistance the mob behind him.

Finally after what seemed to have been an eternity Naruto managed to evade his pursuers by sprinting down several alleys and hiding in a dumpster. He lay there with a hand over his mouth to quiet his breathing until the sounds from the crowd could no longer be heard. Sitting up Naruto carefully lifted the lid of the dumpster and peeked out to see that the alley was empty.

Smiling and congratulating himself on getting away, Naruto opened the lid further and climbed out of the dumpster. As he began walking back towards the orphanage he heard the sound of chuckling from above.

"See, I told you the kid was still around." Came a voice from above.

Naruto looked up to see three men perched on the ledge of the roof, Naruto noticed immediately the one thing they had in common, all three of them were wearing hitae-ate. the first one had spiky green hair, he was wearing black pants with a red tank-top, his left arm was covered in a large burn scar.

The second man was bald save for a single strip of short brown hair in the middle of his head, he was wearing blue pants a black shirt and a gray vest, and on his back was a sword. The final man had long black hair that hung down over his eyes, and he was wearing red pants that cut off at his knees and a purple long sleeved shirt, the lower half of his face was covered in wrappings.

Seeing them Naruto did the first thing that came to mind, he ran. He managed about five steps before a kunai sank into his leg, he collapsed to the ground with a scream that was silenced when one of the shinobi slammed his foot into the back of Naruto's head.

"Huh you were right, taking down the kid was easy." the green haired man said as he ground his foot down into Naruto's head

"Of course it was, you were just overestimating him Imaichi" the bald one said

"Yeah, so what Ryou? with what he is it's easy to expect something more."

"Would you two shut up already and gag the brat, this area's too open" The third man said as he landed between the two

"yeah yeah Makino, were on it" Ryou grumbled as he pulled out a bundle of bandages and tossed them to Imaichi, who lifted Naruto's head off the ground and shoved them in, before picking the boy up by the back of his shirt. "Lets go I know a great place to have some fun with the demon"

"hurry up and lead the way then" Makino said

Imaichi nodded before disappearing in a shunshin, followed quickly by the others.

(Training Ground 3)

Naruto was woken by a swift smack to the face from Ryou. He opened his eyes to find that his mouth was full of bandages preventing him from talking and that he had been tied to a tree at the edge of a clearing with three large poles near the tree line and a river beyond them.

He might have looked around more had Ryou not said anything

"well look who's awake"

Naruto's eyes snapped over to Ryou's face to see the man smiling, though it didn't seem to be a very nice smile.

"you know he doesn't look very happy Ryou" Imaichi said as he walked over with a large container of sake in his hand

"You think he would be since he's helping you out so much"

"Oh, that's the problem right there! he doesn't know what he doing for you yet does he? Imaichi said before taking a large gulp of sake

"your right! he doesn't know yet." Ryou said as he drew the blade from his back "Well kid you get to help me test out the sharpness of my new sword." he said and then slashed Naruto diagonally across his face. Naruto's eyes widened in pain and he screamed behind the gag "hmm I'd say that it cuts pretty nicely, but to truly tell you should test it some more." Imaichi said between sips of his sake.

Ryou smirked and swung his blade, cutting through the ropes that held Naruto to the tree, causing the boy to collapse on the ground where he lay cradling his face.

"get up and run boy, make this more fun for me." Ryou said with a sadistic smile on his face, when Naruto didn't move his smile faded "fine" he muttered, and kicked Naruto sending him flying over towards Makino was leaning against a tree smoking a cigarette. looking at the young blonde boy who had landed at his feet.

"get up" he said, when the boy didn't move Makino reached down and picked him up by the neck "you know, children who don't listen to their elders get punished." he said taking a drag on his cigarette, he then pressed the red hot tip into Naruto's left eye causing the boy to scream again

"hey Makino send him this way" Ryou said. Makino looked over at him and shrugging and tossed the blonde through the air. As the boy flew past Ryou, he slashed out with his blade. Naruto continued past and slammed in to the ground behind Ryou.

His right arm however landed next to Imaichi who looked down at it and laughed, and made sure to step on it as he walked over to stand next to Ryou. "that's a pretty good blade you got there, maybe I'll get one myself" he said, his speech slightly slurred from the sake. They watched Naruto squirm in pain as he held onto the stump of his arm for a few minutes before Ryou shoved his blade into Naruto's right leg pinning him to the ground, "knock it off" he said "all that squirming is getting real annoying" Imaichi looked on for a few moments before staggering off "I'll be back, got to go take a leak" he slurred out.

He barely went twenty feet before he collapsed forward onto his face. Makino sigh and started walking toward Imaichi's prone form. "Kill the kid and lets get out of here"

"you got it" Ryou said as he pulled the blade from Naruto's leg and raised it above his head. However before he brought it down upon Naruto, Ryou heard something hit the ground behind him. Turning to look he saw Makino's head rolling across the ground.

"what the fu-"

He was cut off when a kunai was shoved into his throat. Before the darkness overtook him he saw an Anbu with a weasel mask. The Anbu moved past Ryou and knelt next to Naruto and quickly felt for a pulse, sighing in relief when he found it, it was weak but it was there, scooping the boy up the Anbu shunshined away.

(Hokage's Tower)

Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Sandaime Hokage, sat at his desk attempting to defeat one of his greatest enemies, paperwork, the Hokage sighed as he looked at the large stacks that he still had to look over, it was larger than normal due to the celebration that was taking place.

His attention was drawn upwards sharply when the door to his office was thrown open and a young chunin rushed in.

"Hokage-sama, there was an incident with the Uzumaki boy" he managed to say between breaths.

The Hokage stood up from his desk "what happened" he demanded

"There was an attack sir, I don't know the details, but the boy's in the hospital." That was all that Sarutobi needed to head, he strode around his desk, out the door, and to the roof where he vanished in a shunshin.

(Konoha General Hospital)

The Hokage walked down the hallways of the hospital until he came before a room with the weasel masked Anbu standing next to the door, who turned as Sarutobi approached.

"Hokage-sama" he said with a small bow.

"Hello Itachi-san, how is he doing?"

"He's stable now Hokage-sama, but his wounds are rather severe, his right arm was cut off near his shoulder, and his right leg had to be amputated due to the injury's it received. He also has a cut across his left eye which destroyed it, the doctors have already removed what remained. He also has a puncture wound from a kunai in the back of his left leg, but it is a minor injury and is already healing"

Sarutobi's face showed no change in emotion save for a hardening of his eyes as he received this information. "At the moment Naruto-kun is resting, and the doctor's say that he will awaken in a few hours."

"thank you Itachi-san, you may go home now" Itachi nodded and bowed again, before walking off down the hallway. The Hokage watched him leave and then spoke to the empty hallway "Kuma-san" a few moments passed before an Anbu with a bear mask appeared by Sarutobi's side.

"Yes Hokage-sama?" the man asked.

"Please set up a security detail for Naruto, and please inform the owner of Ichiraku Ramen, I'm think that he and his daughter would like to know of this"

"Hai Hokage-sama" Kuma said and then disappeared to fulfill his orders.

Sarutobi then looked back to the door to Naruto's room and put his hand on the doorknob. Sighing he opened the door and walked into the dimly lit room and looked at the sleeping boy. The left side of his face was covered in bandages and the fact that Naruto was missing limbs was painfully obvious from the flattened areas that should have been filled by his right arm and leg.

Sarutobi's face softened as he stared at Naruto as he slept, Sarutobi truly seemed to show his age as he slowly sat in one of the chairs along the wall in the room. 'What am I going to do for you Naruto? With this your dream is over before it truly began.'

**And cut. that's a wrap, thank you for at least getting this far in my first attempt at writing a Fanfic. Don't worry I'm not going to end Naruto's ninja career, I have a plan and all will become clear later on. All reviews, flames and death threats are welcome (as long as you don't know where I live) and I especially welcome constructive criticism. Until next time Good night and good luck.**


	2. 2 A New Dream Begins

**Well here is the second chapter of my first story I hope that you enjoy the insane nonsense that is cluttering my mind these days, and that this story becomes popular with the people on this site.**

**Oh and I do not own Naruto in any way shape or form. My current plan to change this fact involves explosive mice and genetically engineered giant hawks. Does anyone know where I can get some?**

**Chapter 2: A New Dream Begins**

Two months, it had been two months since Naruto had woken up in the hospital to find that he was missing his left eye, and his right arm and leg. Two months since he had come to the realization that without those limbs his dream of becoming the Hokage would be impossible. His time in the hospital had been miserable while he had been recovering from his wounds. The only visitors he'd had during the he was healing was from the Hokage and Ayame, who was the daughter of the owner of Ichiraku Ramen which was Naruto's favorite restaurant, who brought ramen with her every time she came by. At first she had to help Naruto feed himself until he was good enough with his left hand.

A number of things in his life had changed after Naruto was attacked. One main thing was that during the times that the Hokage visited him, Naruto had managed to convince him that he would be better on his own, and away from other people. It took time for the old man to agree to Naruto's request but he eventually did.

Naruto had been out-fitted with a prosthetic leg to help him walk, though he still needed a crutch to get up flights of stairs, he had also taken to wearing an eye-patch over his left eye to cover the empty socket, simply because he had no interest in having a false eye.

While Naruto was recovering his attitude had changed, no longer was he a happy, care-free kid with unlimited amounts of energy. He had become quiet and withdrawn.

After he was released from the hospital his attitude only became worse. Naruto had become lethargic and no longer seemed to care about the things going on around him.

People who knew Naruto well enough noticed that his eye no longer held the life that they'd had before he was crippled.

Recently Naruto had taken to visiting Training Ground 3, he never did anything he simply sat against one of the three poles and stared forward into nothing until the sun went down.

It was on one of these visits that his world changed once more.

(Konoha Main Gate)

A red haired young man wearing a black cloak walked through the large main gates of Konohagakure no Sato, unnoticed by the gate guards as just another tourist, or merchant wandering into the city. He continued walking until he came upon a small stand with a sign that said Ichiraku Ramen. Shrugging the man entered and took a seat at the counter.

The owner of the ramen shop

Teuchi came from the back of the shop "Hey there welcome to Ichiraku's, what can I get for you?"

"Oh I'm not hungry at the moment, but I could use some directions."

"what exactly are you looking for?" Teuchi said a little disappointed that he wasn't going to be making a sale

"well I'm a bit of an artist and I was hoping to find a forested area with a river, know of any places like that?"

"hmm well I do know of one place, that gets rather beautiful around dusk. The ninja around here call it Training Ground 3."

(Training Ground 3, sunset)

'hmm that ramen seller was right this area is quiet nice, it can't compare to my art though. but at least I can train here if I'm careful'. The red headed man mussed as he walked through the forest until he came upon a large clearing.

"yes this looks like it will do nicely" he said as he removed a scroll from under his cloak. As he started to open it, an image at the corner of his eye drew his attention over to the three poles where he noticed a small shape sitting there unmoving. His curiosity piqued he walked over to find out who or what it was.

XxXxX

Naruto had been sitting unmoving for the past several hours simply staring at the river flowing by. Whatever thoughts he might've been having were interrupted when someone approached him.

Naruto looked up to see a red haired young man in a black cloak looking down at him. "That's some look you've got in your eye kid, it's the look of somebody who's given up on life, who no longer cares." the man said "Now what could cause a kid as young as you to that kind of look?"

Naruto didn't reply, he didn't do anything in fact except stare at the stranger in front of him. 'Odd kid' "well if you don't want to tell me that's fine, but it's pathetic to see someone so young give up like this."

It wasn't until the man turned to leave that Naruto finally spoke. "I gave up because my dream, the only thing I ever wished was taken away from me when I lost my arm and leg. Without them I can never become a ninja, which means I'll never be Hokage."

"So your not even going to try and fight for your dream? Like I said, you're pathetic"

"How am I supposed to do that? I can barely walk, without two arms I can't make hand signs! Tell me, how can I fight when I'm like this damn it!" Naruto yelled as tears began to flow from his eye.

The stranger stared at the boy with a look of contempt, and then slammed his hand into the side of Naruto's head and sent him sprawling to the ground

"Crying is a worthless act, and is nothing more than a sign of weakness that should never be shown."

With the help of his crutch and the pole next to him Naruto lifted himself to his feet.

"Screw you" he growled and swung his crutch at the man head, which missed when the man leaned back.

"That's better brat, but not good enough show me the fire that's stored inside of you! Unless you want to be a pathetic little shit for the rest of your life."

"SHUT UP!" Naruto yelled and lunged at the stranger.

It was a good attempt but it was met with similar results to Naruto's clumsy swing of his crutch, except that this time Naruto ended up on his back behind the man. 0

He stared at the sky slightly dazed, until the red haired man's face blocked his view.

"Tell me boy, if I said that I knew of a way for you to follow your dream once more, would you fight for it the same way you're fighting right now?"

"Of course I would, I would give anything to become a ninja. But what's the point in talking about it, it's impossible."

At this the man started laughing "Trust me my naive boy what I'm talking about is anything but impossible. I know this for a fact because your not the only one missing limbs." He said as he slid back the sleeve of his cloak to reveal that his arm was a prosthetic as well. Naruto stared in shock as the man began to move the limb around as if it was a real arm.

"How are you doing that?"

"This is a specially designed arm that I can move with my chakra and through the use of chakra threads."

"Chakra threads? What are those?"

The man sighed before explaining "Chakra threads, are threads made of chakra that puppet users like me, use to control puppets in battles." Naruto nodded in understanding though he didn't fully get it.

"However before you I can give a new arm I will have to teach you how to use your chakra and to create chakra threads"

"So, why do you want to help me?"

"Because I believe that you will be very entertaining when you are older."

"That's it?"

"Do I really need a reason to do what I want?"

Naruto thought about that for a moment "No I guess you don't"

"Good" the man said as he grabbed the front of Naruto's shirt and lifted him off the ground and set him on his feet.

"Now then, seeing as how that's settled, meet me here tomorrow at first light. Unless of course you have no interest of ever becoming a ninja."

"I'll be here, and I will become a ninja dattebayo!" he said before turning and walking back towards the village and his apartment. He stopped suddenly at the edge of the clearing and turned around and said "My name is Naruto Uzumaki, what's yours?"

The man was silent for a moment before he replied "I am Sasori, Akasuna no Sasori"

A small smile formed on Naruto's face, one of the first he'd had since his release from the hospital "I'll see you tomorrow Sasori-sensei"

Sasori watched as the boy turned and walked off once again, quickly fading from veiw thanks to the thick foilage and low light "Oh yes, I do believe that this little project will be very entertaining, who knows maybe I'll even turn him into my newest piece of art if I ever get bored of him" chuckling Sasori walked into the darkening forest to begin his training.

XxXxX

Naruto returned to Training Ground 3 the next morning and the following mornings for several months to train under the watchful, and at times sadistic, eye of Sasori. His training included how to access and use his chakra, different methods of chakra control, how to create and use chakra threads, marksmanship with a variety of throwing weapons, basic human anatomy and strength training because in the words of Sasori "I will never train nor accept a weak student".

And on any day that Sasori thought that Naruto wasn't trying hard enough, he would torment the boy with tasks of ever increasing difficulty until he began to work harder, such as standing on one leg using his chakra to balance multiple leaves on his body while evading kunai that Sasori would throw at him. (Unfortunately for Naruto, Sasori decided that it was a great training exercise and added it to his daily activities.)

Because Naruto had such large chakra reserves for someone his age, it was six months before Sasori decided that Naruto's control was good enough to properly use the puppet limbs that he had been preparing for the boy.

"Good morning Sensei" Naruto said as he walked into the clearing to see Sasori sitting on top of the middle of the trio of poles.

"Good morning Naruto" Sasori replied as he stood up and jumped to the ground.

"Let me see your cane for a moment" he said when Naruto reached him.

Naruto looked at the cane in his hand that had replaced his crutch when he had gotten good enough at moving around on his fake leg, in fact he didn't really need it he simply carried around just in case. Shrugging Naruto handed it over without a word.

As soon as it was in Sasori's hands he started looking it over as if to find some sort of flaw in it's make. He did this for about a minute before suddenly looking behind Naruto.

"What's that?" he said causing Naruto to turn around to look at whatever his sensei had seen. Of course this caused him to miss the smirk on Sasori's face as he lifted the cane up and then brought it down on Naruto's head with a resounding THWACK.

The boy collapsed to the ground with a large bump forming on his head.

"Huh, I figured it would take more than one hit, guess he needs more training on how to take a hit" Sasori muttered as he grabbed Naruto's left leg and started dragging him into the forest. He continued to drag his student along the ground until he arrived a small shack that he had built in the last month as Naruto's level of control drew nearer to were Sasori wanted it to be. It wasn't much to look at just a small building that had been constructed quickly for what Sasori needed to do and to hold some of the things Sasori used to build puppets. Opening the door he pulled Naruto in and lifted him onto a rectangular table in the middle of the shack.

Along the walls of the small building were various tools, weapons, and puppet parts that . Opening a small container on a near by counter Sasori pulled out a needle filled with a sedative, which he injected in to Naruto to ensure that he stayed asleep during the surgery that needed to be done.

Pulling down the parts that he would need from the walls and setting up an I.V. for Naruto Sasori worked quickly to prep Naruto's surgery.

When everything was ready Sasori exposed the stumps of Naruto's arm and leg. Placing a scalpel against the flesh of his arm Sasori made the first of multiple cuts in what was going to be a rather delicate and risky surgery.

XxXxX

Naruto woke up feeling dazed and numb, he tried to sit up but was pushed back down by someone's hand on his chest, he attempted to struggle against it but he was unsuccessful. "Stop" A voice said "if you keep moving around you're going to rip open your stitches."

Naruto stop moving and the hand left his chest.

"Good, now go back to sleep."

Shortly after the voice said this Naruto felt a warmth blossom in his chest and spread to the rest of his body as the world faded to black around him. Sometime later Naruto woke again, this time however he was more clear headed and able notice his surroundings. The first thing he notice was that he was in his own bed. The second thing was that he wasn't alone, Sasori was sitting in a chair next to his bed.

"How are you feeling Naruto?" he asked

"a little light headed, what happened?"

"I decided that it was time to begin the process of giving you, your new limbs."

Naruto's eye opened wide and his head turned so fast Sasori was surprised it didn't snap. "Really?"

"Yes, in fact if you look at your right arm you'll see what I'm talking about."

Naruto looked down and to see that his arm was covered in bandages and that a short cylindrical piece of metal had been attached to the base of his right arm.

"W-what is this?"

"That is the base for a puppet arm with it you can attach arms with different tools and functions, I attached the same device to your leg. With the right tools this part of the base can be removed, so they can be refitted as you grow."

"So I can get my arm and leg back now?" Naruto asked the excitement barely contained in his voice "No, not yet, I had to do a bit of surgery to connect the bases to your limbs and it'll be a few days before they've healed enough." Sasori said as he stood up and walked towards Naruto's kitchen

"Oh, I see"

"Don't sound so downtrodden, in just a few days you'll be standing on your new leg, and probably doing something stupid just because you can"

"Yeah, but I just can't wait that long I want to be able to move around and do whatever I want like I used to." As he talked Sasori walked back into his room carrying a steaming bowl of ramen.

"Too bad kid. Here eat this" he said setting the bowl in Naruto's lap, who after a fast itadakimasu picked up the chopsticks and quickly dug in, he finished off the bowl broth and all within a couple of minutes.

Sasori watched in mild amazement at the speed that Naruto sucked down the noodles before he continued speaking.

"Just stay in bed and rest and I'll bring by your limbs in a couple of days. Understand?"

"Hai, sensei"

"Your cane is right here for when you need it." He said motioning to the cane that was leaning against the wall next to the bed.

"I'll be back in a few days to check on you, so don't kill yourself trying to take a piss or something kid, later." He said taking the empty ramen bowl from Naruto.

"Bye sensei, and thanks for the ramen." Sasori didn't respond, he simply walked out of Naruto's room and out of his apartment.

XxXxX

To Naruto the five days that he had to wait seemed to crawl by at an excruciatingly slow pace, but finally the time came when Sasori said that he had healed enough for his new limbs to be attached.

Now Naruto was sitting at his kitchen table watching in nervous anticipation as Sasori placed a scroll on the table and opened it. Sasori then channeled chakra into the scroll which caused a large puff of smoke to be released, when the smoke cleared, sitting on the table was a puppet arm and leg.

They were a light brown in color with all the joints necessary to replicate the full motion of actual limbs, at the top of both the arm and were a number of small poles which would help lock them into the base's on Naruto.

Picking up the leg first Sasori stepped over to stand in front of Naruto. He wordlessly knelt down and channeled chakra into the metal base on Naruto's leg causing pins equal to the number of pole to rise up out of the base.

After he had done this he slid the poles into the base and locked it into place by channeling more chakra into the base to make the pins retract. Attaching the arm was simply a repeat of how Sasori had attached his leg.

"Alright focus your chakra and make threads to simulate the muscles like I taught you, and then try moving your arm." Naruto did so and attempted to move his arm to head level, but it wasn't smooth like he thought it would, instead it was slightly jerky, but that didn't matter to Naruto all that mattered was that it moved.

"Good keep working at it and you should be able to move it naturally soon enough, but for now lets get you standing." Sasori said as he took hold of Naruto's arm and helped him up. Naruto put the puppet leg underneath him and slowly shifted his weight onto it. He was a little unsteady at first but after a few minutes of slowly walking around the room Naruto felt confident that with a bit of practice he would be able to move around as well as when he still had a real leg.

As these thought crossed his mind he felt tears begin to form in the corner of his eye, but quickly fought them back and wiped them away so that Sasori wouldn't see them.

"Just keep moving them and you'll get good enough to use them without thinking. Oh, and I picked up some clothes that I figured you would like." Sasori said motioning at a pile of clothes sitting on the table.

"Come to Training Ground 3 in two days so we can begin your new training."

"Hai Sasori-sensei, and thank you." Sasori said nothing, he simply chuckled and walked out the door.

XxXxX

A while later Naruto was walking through the streets of Konoha wearing a smile on his face and the new clothes he had received from Sasori.

He was now dressed in a pair of dark orange pants and a black t-shirt with a red swirl on the back, his right arm and leg were completely wrapped in bandages to cover the joints, since he wanted to keep his limbs a secret for as long as possible.

As he walked along he noticed the glares and cold looks that the passersby's in the streets always gave him, but he ignored them, today he didn't care, today nothing could ruin his good mood.

After a few minute he arrived at the Hokage's Tower, and continued up to Sarutobi's office. As he walked into the waiting area he was greeted by the secretary, a young brown haired woman who had always been nice to Naruto.

"Good morning Uzumaki-kun" she said with a smile "How can I help you today?"

"I was hopping to see Hokage-jiji. Is he busy?"

"Give me a moment and I can find out Uzumaki-kun."

At the moment the Hokage was not working instead he was reading through a small orange book and every once and awhile letting out a perverted giggle. When the intercom went off he quickly put the book away as his secretary's voice came over the line.

"Hokage-sama, Uzumaki-kun is here to see you, would you like to see him?" A small smile appeared on the old man's face as he pulled out his pipe and filled it with tobacco.

"Yes please send him in." He struck a match and was about to light his pipe when the door opened, looking up to say hello, his eyes went wide with surprise and he let his pipe fall from his mouth, as he stared at Naruto, who had two arms once again.

Sarutobi continued to stare until the match burned down to his fingers. Cursing quietly he snuffed it out before looking back at Naruto.

"Naruto-kun, what's going on? What is that?"

"This? This is my new arm jiji." Naruto said as he raised his right arm and undid the bandages letting them drop to the ground.

"Is that a puppet arm? Who gave that to you?"

"My sensei gave it to me, his name is Sasori and he's been training me for the past six months."

Sarutobi's eyes narrowed slightly when he heard that name, but he said nothing. "Jiji I want to become a ninja, can I?"

The Hokage's face broke out into a large smile when he heard that.

"Yes Naruto I suppose you can, but you'll have to go to the academy first, I can take care of things so you can start today if you wish."

"Thank you, jiji." he said

"You're welcome Naruto-kun, first however you should rewrap your arm" Sarutobi said as he pulled out a pen and piece of paper and began to write, while Naruto picked the bandages off the floor and started to carefully cover his arm.

The Hokage finished writing shortly after Naruto finished hiding his arm. "Here Naruto take this to the Academy and give it to Iruka Umino."

Naruto took the piece of paper for the Hokage's hand.

"Thanks jiji, I'll go over there right now, and I promise you I'll become the best ninja ever dattebayo!"

"Yes Naruto I'm certain you will be" Sarutobi said as Naruto walked out of his office, and he knew this to be true for when he looked into Naruto's eye he no longer saw the hopelessness that had plagued the boy. Now he saw determination, the determination to do whatever was necessary to fulfill his dream, whatever that dream may be.

XxXxX

Iruka Umino had been in the middle of a lecture when he heard the door to his classroom slid open, looking over he saw a blonde haired boy with an eye patch over his left eye standing in the doorway. "Excuse me, are you Iruka-san?" the boy asked

"Yes I am, what can I do for you?"

Upon hearing that he had found the right person the boy walked into the room and approached Iruka, though he looked uncomfortable to be in his presence and seemed to watch him warily.

"I was told to give you this." He said holding out a folded piece of paper. Iruka took the paper, unfolded it and quickly read over what was written, before folding it once more and put it in his pocket.

He turned to the class and announced "Everyone it seems that we have a new student joining our class today, please say hello to Naruto Uzumaki."

Around the classroom a chorus of hello's rang out. "Naruto-san you can take the empty seat next to Hinata-san" Iruka said, pointing at the seat next to a blue haired girl with pale eyes.

"Hai sensei" Naruto said with a nod and walked to where the seat was and sat down. As Naruto sat down he noticed that the girl was staring at him out of the corner of her eye, so he turned towards her. "Hi, I'm Naruto" he said with a small smile, unfortunately this did not have the effect he intended, instead the girl blushed bright red and went ramrod straight, looking forward and nowhere else.

Naruto was staring at her in confusion wondering what it was he had done when he heard Iruka's voice "Oh and Naruto-san, before I forget, welcome to the Academy."

XxXxX

(Two days later)

Sasori was sitting in his usual place on top of the middle pole in the clearing waiting on Naruto to arrive so he could start the new training, when he felt a presence behind him. Turning his head to look he saw the Hokage standing there. "I was wondering when you were going to make an appearance, took you long enough."

"What is it you're planning to do with Naruto?" Sarutobi asked, having no interest in wasting time playing games

"I'm not really planning to do anything with the boy, is it so hard to believe that I'm doing this simply because I feel like it?"

"Considering who it is I'm talking with, yes it is hard to believe that."

"Touché, old man, but it's true no matter what you think, I'm doing this simply because I feel that the boy will be entertaining in years to come."

"If that's the truth then I'll do you a favor, I won't tell Suna that you're here. However if you do anything to harm that boy I'll kill you myself." The Hokage said and then vanished in a swirl of leaves. Sasori smirked and turned around to see Naruto walk out of the forest and into the clearing.

"Hello Sasori-sensei, you'll never guess what happened."

"You were enrolled in the Academy, right?"

"What? How'd you know?"

"I know everything kid"

"Hey you said that we were going to start some new training today, right?"

"That's right Naruto, today I'm going to start teaching you how to control puppets."

**And that's all she wrote folks, literally it 3 am were I am and I'm running on fumes, or are fumes running on me? Doesn't matter, what does matter is that I hope you enjoyed this chapter and that you show your enjoyment by reviewing my story, it would mean a lot to me thanks.**


	3. 3 The Trick and the Team

Yo, sorry it took me so long to get a new chapter out, but my life is a bit complicated at the moment. Anyways, I'm going to try and update more often, but at the moment I can't promise anything. Oh and as far as pairings go, my story probably won't have any, only because I'm new at this and I don't think I good enough to try, but that doesn't mean that there won't be any if people really want there to be one. If there is one I can guarantee that it won't be Hinata, I have nothing against her, and I like that pairing, but this story doesn't give off a NaruHina vibe to me.

Disclaimer: I don't Own Naruto, but I wish I did because that would be awesome

**Chapter 3: The Trick and the Team**

"Crap, crap, crap" Naruto said as he ran down the street towards the Ninja Academy

"I can not be late today, why didn't my alarm wake me... oh yeah I smashed it didn't I? Well that's it's own fault for trying to wake me up before I was ready."

As he ran, out of the corner of his left eye he saw a foot stick itself in front of him but he was moving to fast to avoid it, he was sent flying forward when his leg collided with the leg of whoever it was that was trying to trip him. Reacting quickly Naruto threw his arm out and performed a front handspring.

"Screw you" he said as he landed and threw a small object behind him as he took of running once more. The object he had thrown hit the ground and burst into a cloud of thick foul-smelling smoke that quickly filled the street.

"I've said it before, but I've got to say it again, I fucking love this eye!" He said as he thought back to how he had received it.

_(Flashback)_

_After Naruto had been enrolled in the Academy, Sasori had begun his training on how to not only use puppets, but also on poison and antidote making, how to build his own puppets and replacement limbs if necessary. He had also been taught stealth skills and how to avoid attacks. _

_Soon after Sasori had decided that Naruto's control over puppets, he began to attack Naruto at random times so that the boy would gain battle experience. _

_Naruto learned how to dodge and hide rather quickly, because Sasori rarely held back much in their fights, so if Naruto wanted to avoid trips to the hospital, which he hated more than anything, he had to get good fast. _

_This continued for the next seven months, until one day Naruto entered the clearing to see that Sasori wasn't in his normal place on top of the middle pole. Naruto immediately went on the defensive and stared looking around for any trace of his sensei. _

_However no matter where he looked he saw nothing that indicated that Sasori was nearby. Creeping forward farther into the clearing turning his head in every direction, his eye darting around looking at everything. _

_When he reached the trio of poles he jumped to the top of the center one. As he landed he felt something tap against his foot, looking down Naruto saw a closed scroll sitting there, a piece of paper with his name on it attached to it. _

_Naruto hesitantly reached and picked it up, when nothing happened, he opened it at arms length ready to toss it away should anything happen. Instead of a trap, the scroll was filled with writing. _

_Looking closer Naruto realized it was a letter to him. He quickly started to read._

Naruto

By the time you find this scroll I'll have left Konoha. I have other duties to attend to that I have put off for far too long. I have one last test to give you. Prove that I made the right choice in helping you, become a great puppet user. If you can't do this then the next time we meet I will kill you for wasting my time. I'm looking forward to seeing how entertaining you turn out to be.

In the seal below is a creation of mine that I think you will like quite a bit, consider it a gift.

_Below the writing was a storage seal and Naruto quickly bit his thumb to draw blood and swiped it across the seal releasing what ever was inside with a puff of smoke. When the smoke cleared sitting in the center of the seal was an eye and underneath it was another note._

This eye was something I made while working on one of my greatest achievements, with the use of chakra it should allow you to regain your vision if you have it placed in your empty eye socket. I can't guarantee that it will work though, so you'll have to decide if you want to risk it or not.

Until the next time we meet

Sasori

P.S. Boom

_As soon as he read the P.S. Naruto heard a sizzling sound, looking down he saw an active paper bomb near his feet. His eye, widened as the burning fuse reached the center and the bomb exploded before he could jump away. As the smoke cleared, instead of a badly burned Naruto, a badly burned log was lying on the ground near the center pole. Naruto walked from the forest breathing a bit heavier due to the adrenaline rush "Man I love __Kawarimi no Jutsu (Substitution __ Jutsu)__ so much"_

_(Flashback End)_

It had taken Naruto a month to talk to the Hokage about it, and another three weeks to actually decide to go through with it, under the condition that the Hokage be there the entire length of time that it would take to insert the eye.

Fortunately for Naruto it didn't take very long to insert it, unfortunately he really had no idea how to use it.

It took two weeks of trial and error to figure out how to use chakra to connect the eye to the correct nerves.

Though he was only able so see blurry shapes at first, with continued use and practice his eyesight returned to what it once was, better actually, the vision in his left eye was now sharper and clearer than in his right eye.

When he had first looked into a mirror after it was inserted Naruto was thrilled that he had gained back some semblance of his old self, though if anyone looked close enough they would see that the color of his left eye was slightly darker than his right.

Shaking those thoughts from his head, he continued to run until he reached the doors of the academy, adding more speed Naruto bolted for the door to his classroom, sliding to a stop in front of it he quietly slid the door open to see that Iruka was talking to the assistant teacher Mizuki and his back was to him.

Stepping as quietly as possible Naruto started to move towards an empty seat.

"How nice of you to join us today Naruto."

'Damn' Naruto froze and turned his head to see that Iruka was looking right at him with a smirk on his face.

"You're lucky that today is graduation day or I would make you stay behind after class, now go take your seat."

Naruto's shoulders slumped and he made his way to the seat as the rest of the class started to laugh.

"All right everyone quiet down." Iruka said getting no reaction from his class. "SHUT UP!" He yelled which caused immediate silence.

"Thank you, now then as you should all know today is the day of your graduation test, we will be calling you into the next room shortly, all you'll have to do is create three Bunshin and you pass."

'Crap, why did it have to be my worst skill?' Naruto thought as Iruka called the first student to take the test. As he waited to be called for his test Naruto decided to meditate, to try and calm himself.

His concentration was broken when he heard his name being called. Opening his eyes he saw Mizuki standing next to the door looking at him expectantly.

Naruto sighed, stood up and walked past Mizuki through the door into the exam room.

"Alright Naruto go ahead." Iruka said as Mizuki sat down next to him behind a desk covered with numerous hitae-ate.

'Here goes nothing' Naruto thought as he made the ram seal "Bunshin no Jutsu (Clone Jutsu)". There was a puff of smoke that quickly cleared to show two semi-transparent dead looking clones lying on the ground next to Naruto.

Iruka sweatdropped as he looked at the clones. "Fail" he said with a sigh.

"Oh c'mon Iruka this is his third time and he did manage to make two clones, we could let him pass."

"No way Mizuki. Everyone else was able to make three clones, Naruto only made two and they were completely worthless, I can't let him pass."

"I'm sorry Naruto" Iruka said looking up only to see that Naruto had left the room sometime during the conversation between him and Mizuki.

_(A little while later)_

Naruto was sitting in a tree looking over at the crowd of parents congratulating their children for passing the graduation test. He wasn't listening to them however, he was just sitting and thinking. He was roused from his thoughts when he heard Mizuki's voice below him. "Hey Naruto can I talk to you?"

XxXxX

_(Later that night, the Hokage's Residence)_

Naruto crept down the halls towards the scroll room dressed in black pants with a blue belt, a dark orange shirt, and a black arm warmer on his left arm. Attached to the back of his belt was a brown pouch with a clasp keeping it closed.

On his face was a pair of goggles that he had picked up a few months earlier for a project that he had been working on and over his mouth and nose was a red bandana. On his back was a satchel that looked to be close to bursting open it was stuffed so full.

"What are you doing in my house?" Naruto went completely still when he heard the Hokage's voice from behind him.

Instead of turning around Naruto dropped a small metallic cylinder that he had been holding onto. When it hit the ground the ends slid out and a thick black smoke began to spew out of it, which completely obscured Naruto who booked it for the scroll room. He spotted the correct scroll, grabbed it and quickly secured it to his back, while dropping the satchel to the ground. He then proceeded leave the building as fast as he could.

Across the street a figure shrouded in shadows watched as Naruto jumped through a window followed by a giant cloud of black smoke.

"The kid actually got it, not bad" the man said as he moved back farther into the shadows. Naruto didn't stop running until he had reached the forest and small clearing that Mizuki had told him about, sitting down he opened the scroll that he had stolen.

"Lets see what's the first Jutsu? Aww man, Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu)? Of course it would be the one thing I'm bad at first. Oh well better get started on it."

XxXxX

Naruto was sitting in a tree taking a short break from training and looking through the scroll looking for any thing on Kugutsu no Jutsu (Puppet Jutsu).

"There you are Naruto. I finally found you!" he heard from below him, glancing down he saw Iruka standing in the clearing looking up at him

"What are you doing here Iruka-sensei?"

"I said I was looking for you idiot!" Iruka said a tick mark forming on his head

"Never mind that, I managed to learn a Jutsu from the scroll so you'll let me pass now right?" Naruto asked as he jumped from the tree and landed in a crouch in front of Iruka

"What? Naruto who told you that?"

"Mizuki-sensei told me, he also told me about this place." Naruto replied with a confused look on his face

'Mizuki?' Iruka's eyes went wide when he heard the sound of something flying through the air behind him, reacting quickly Iruka shoved Naruto away from him and spun around while raising his arms into a block to try and guard against the kunai that were flying at him.

Luckily most of them missed him, but several didn't and he now had multiple wounds in his arms, legs and chest.

"Good job in finding the brat Iruka." Mizuki said from his pace up in a tree, his arm outstretched from throwing the kunai.

"What's going on?" Naruto asked the confusion evident on his face.

"Don't worry about that Naruto, just give me the scroll."

"NO! Naruto you can't let him have the scroll, it contains dangerous forbidden Jutsu, no matter what happens you can't give it to him!"

"There's no point in you having it Naruto, I know! How about I tell you the truth"

Iruka's face went pale when he heard that "No you can't!" He yelled but Mizuki ignored him "Have you ever wondered why everyone avoids you? Why you're always looked at with eyes full of hate? It's because, 12 years ago when the Kyuubi attacked the Yondaime was unable to defeat it, so he did the only thing he could, he sealed it into a newborn child. And that child was you Naruto! You are the Kyuubi! You are the Nine-Tailed Fox that destroyed the village and killed so many of it's people!"

Naruto's eyes went wide as he took in what Mizuki had told him and he turned his head downward as he thought back to when he had been crippled. "So that's why." He softly said "No Naruto don't listen to him, it's not true!"

"It doesn't matter what you say Iruka he knows it to be true"

"Shut up you bastard!"

Mizuki just smirked and pulled one of the two oversized shuriken he was carrying from his back

"Now die!" He shouted as he threw it at Naruto who was looking down, unmoving, his eyes cast in shadows. Before the shuriken hit him Naruto was tackled to the ground by Iruka, who grunted in pain as he felt the shuriken sink into his back.

"Why? Why did you do that?" Naruto asked as he looked up at Iruka

"Because what Mizuki said isn't true, you are not the fox, you are someone I've acknowledged as one of my excellent students, and you are a member of the Hidden Leaf Village."

Naruto's eyes widened in surprise at Iruka words and he could feel tears trying to form in the corners of his eyes, but he didn't let them.

Instead he rolled out from under Iruka and stood up next to him

"This is going to hurt Sensei" Naruto said as he took a hold of the shuriken that was stuck in Iruka's back. "Wait Naruto what are yo- GAAH!" he was cut off when Naruto yanked out the oversized shuriken.

"Please don't move Sensei, you'll just end up hurting yourself more."

"Naruto you need to run, you can't handle Mizuki!"

"I am one of your excellent students, right Sensei?" Naruto asked as he dropped the shuriken next to Iruka.

"Yes but-"

"Then please have faith in me" he said, cutting Iruka off again while making a cross seal. "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu)" He cried out as 10 solid clones popped into existence around him.

Mizuki looked down at Naruto in surprise and apprehension, but quickly smothered those feelings

"Not bad brat but 11 times zero is still zero" Naruto didn't reply to Mizuki, he simply glanced at his clones and said "Get him"

As one, all 10 of the clones charged towards Mizuki, who quickly threw a handful of shuriken that dispelled three of them.

Jumping from his branch he grabbed two of the clones by their shirts and hurled them at another pair dispelling all four of them.

The three remaining clones spread out around Mizuki trying to keep his attention on two of them while the third tried to sneak up on him from behind.

Moving quickly, Mizuki pulled a kunai and stabbed the closet clone in the neck before spinning and backhanding the next one in the face, he then lashed out with a kick and caught the final clone, who had leapt at him, in the chest.

As the smoke from them dispelling disappeared Mizuki turned around to see that the original Naruto was still standing in the same place.

"You should have listened to Iruka and ran when you had the chance, it doesn't matter how many clones you make, you'll never be able to beat me."

Naruto continued to stare at him for a few seconds, before he burst out laughing

"What's so funny? Are you happy that you're about to die?"

Naruto shook his head "We weren't supposed to beat you Teme, Boss just wanted you to be distracted for a bit"

Mizuki's eyes went wide as he felt a pair of hands grab his throat in a vice like grip, and before he could react he was pulled upwards into the canopy of branches.

"Later Teme" Naruto's clone said as it dispelled itself.

Iruka had crawled over to a tree and had been watching as a pair of hands connected to what looked to be steel cables had descended from above and grabbed Mizuki as he was talking to the Naruto in the clearing, and yanked him upwards.

A few moments later Mizuki reappeared, wrapped in steel cable with a bundle on his back, falling head first towards the ground. He impacted against the earth with a nasty sounding crunch.

"Well that takes care of that" Naruto said standing next to Iruka who hadn't noticed him causing the man to jump slightly.

"How did you do that Naruto?"

Naruto grinned and moved his fingers in a strange fashion which caused the steel cables binding Mizuki's prone form to start moving. Iruka watched as the cables unwound completely from Mizuki's body and the bundle jumped and landed in front of Naruto.

"Is that a puppet?" Iruka asked as the cables fully retracted into its arms.

"Yep, it's the first one I ever made. His name is Kogane Saru" Naruto said with pride.

The puppet was rather short, only a little taller than Naruto was, it had short legs and double jointed arms. There were black diamond shaped marks around it's eyes and it had white hair that looked like it was styled after the current Hokage. It's entire body was made out of a light brown wood.

Iruka continued to stare at the puppet until a thought crossed through his head, "Hey Naruto come here" Naruto hesitated for a few seconds, then slowly walked towards his sensei and kneeled down when Iruka gestured him to.

"Congratulations Naruto" He said as he took off his hitae-ate and handed it to Naruto "You graduate!"

Naruto stared at the hitae-ate in his hands wide eyed for a moment and then turned towards Kogane Saru, moving his fingers again he made the puppet smack him in the face surprising Iruka.

"What the hell was that about?"

"I wasn't sure if I was dreaming or not" Naruto said causing Iruka to sweatdrop.

XxXxX

_(One Week Later)_

Naruto had been chewed out by the Hokage after he returned the Forbidden Scroll, though it been more on the fact that he had activated so many of his foul smelling smoke bombs to cover his escape, than it had been about his thievery.

After that he had been congratulated on handling Mizuki so well, at which point Naruto had asked the Hokage if what Mizuki had said was true.

At that the Hokage had become somber, and didn't answer Naruto, he just took his time refilling his pipe.

_(Flashback)_

_Naruto watched as the Hokage added more tobacco to his pipe, tapped it down, and lit it. "What Mizuki said was both true and untrue." He finally said _

_"What's that suppose to mean?" _

_"It's true that the Kyuubi was sealed inside of you shortly after you were born, but that doesn't mean that you are the Kyuubi, you are it's prison and it's guard." _

_"I know that Jiji, I understand how seals work. I just wanted to know if it was really in me, and now that I know, it explains everything that has happened to me" Naruto said as he clutched his right arm. _

_Naruto sat there unmoving and silent, finally he stood up from his seat and turned to leave. "I need to think about things for a bit" _

_"Very well Naruto-kun, but remember that if you ever need to talk that you are always welcome here." Naruto nodded and walked out the door closing it behind him._

_(Flashback End)_

Now Naruto was sitting in Iruka's classroom waiting with the other graduates for the man to show up and assign them to teams. He was still wearing the clothes that he had donned to steal the scroll, with the only change being, instead of goggles he was wearing his hitae-ate as a headband with the leaf symbol positioned over his right eye.

"Hey Naruto what are you doing here? This is just for students that graduated." Said a boy with black hair and a ponytail that gave his head a pineapple look to it.

"See the headband Shikamaru?" Naruto asked pointing at his forehead "I did graduate, I'm a ninja now, same as you."

"Eh congrats I guess, well I'm going to take a nap, don't wake me." Shikamaru said with a yawn and set his head down on the desk. Naruto stared at the lazy boy with a sweatdrop on his head until the sounds of running drew his attention to the door to see two girls, one with pink hair and one with blonde burst through the doorway

"Ha I got here first Ino-pig!" the pink haired girl said striking a victory pose

"Only cause your giant forehead got through first Sakura!" Ino retorted slightly out of breath "What did you say pig?" Sakura asked angrily, getting right up in Ino's face

"You heard me Forehead Girl!" Ino replied with just as much anger. This would have continued for a while and probably escalated quickly, had Naruto, who was tired of hearing it day after day, not taken a pair of pebbles and flicked them at the two girls hitting them both in the checks.

"WHO DID THAT!" They screamed as one, turning and looking for the perpetrator so that thy could clobber him.

They would have kept looking, and the might have figured out it was Naruto, who was doing his best to avoid looking at them, if Iruka had not chosen that time to walk into the room behind the pair of them quieting down everyone ads he walked in.

"Good morning everyone, as you know as of this day you are all now shinobi of Konohagakure no Sato. Which means that you are expected to carry out any mission assigned to you with the full extent of your abilities. I wish you luck in your futures as ninja and kunoichi's of this village, and I want you to know that I am proud of each and every one of you." He let his words sink in for a moment before clearing his throat.

"Now I'm going to read off the teams that you have been assigned to for your time as genin." This got the attention of almost everyone in the room, the only ones who didn't seem to care were Naruto who was busy writing down and sketching out ideas for upgrades that he could install in Kogane Saru.

Shikamaru who was still trying to sleep, and a stoic boy with black hair that looked similar to a ducks rear end named Sasuke Uchiha, who was the last of the Uchiha clan in Konoha and held the attention of almost every girl in the classroom, not that he even cared in the slightest about any of them.

Naruto continued to ignore the going on of everything around him until a piece of chalk was thrown at his head, which he instinctively caught in his hand, looking up he saw Iruka was still looking at his clipboard but his hand was falling back down to his side after the throw. "Now as I was saying Team 7 will consist of Haruno Sakura, Uzumaki Naruto, and Uchiha Sasuke. You will be under the instruction of Hatake Kakashi."

"Yes! True love conquers all! Take that Ino-pig" Sakura exclaimed when she heard that Sasuke was on her team.

"Team 8 will be Hyuuga Hinata, Inuzuka Kiba, and Aburame Shino with Yuhi Kurenai as your jounin sensei." Iruka said ignoring the outburst and continued celebration from Sakura.

"Team 9 is still in circulation from last year, so we'll move on to Team 10 which will be Yamanaka Ino, Nara Shikamaru, and Akimichi Chouji with Sarutobi Asuma."

"And that's everything for now." Iruka concluded, "You will all be picked up by your respective jounin sensei after lunch. Until then get together with your team, get to know each other, and once again, good luck to all of you." Iruka spared the class one last glance before leaving the students to their own devices.

Naruto looked over at Shikamaru who still seemed to be napping. "Oi Shikamaru, you awake over there?" Naruto asked raising his hand to smack the boy awake if he wasn't

"Who could sleep through Sakura's cheering? Now put your hand down" Was his reply

"Hey lazy bum get up" Ino said as she walked up to the chair he was in, getting no reaction from the boy who was still attempting to nap.

"Ino if you want to get him up, sometimes you have to do something like this." Naruto offered helpfully and kicked Shikamaru's chair out from under him, making him fall to the floor in a heap.

"Damnit Naruto you troublesome bastard" Shikamaru groaned out as he picked himself up off the floor.

"Thanks Naruto. C'mon lets go." Ino said grabbing the boy by the collar and all but dragged him away.

XxXxX

After lunch all of the genin had returned to the room to find that there was a number of adults waiting for them.

They were the jounin sensei's and they had all left with their assigned teams, all except for team 7, their sensei hadn't shown up, so now they were waiting.

To try and pass the time Naruto had attempted to start a conversation with his teammates but every time he tried he was answered with an uncaring "Hmn" from Sasuke, and Sakura ignored him for the most part, unless he said something bad about Sasuke.

After multiple failed attempts at small talk he gave up and began throwing kunai at a small wooden effigy, which possessed an odd resemblance to Mizuki, that he had put up near the blackboard. He threw another kunai just as the door to the classroom slid open and a masked man with spiky silver hair entered, the man turned to look at the door frame near his hitae-ate covered eye where Naruto's kunai had landed

"Sorry about that, that one kind of got away from me"

"Well how do I say this?" the man said taking on a thoughtful pose "My first impression of you guys is... I hate you. Meet me on the roof" he said before vanishing in a swirl of leaves as the three remaining occupants of the room sweatdropped.

Making their way onto the roof, the newly minted Team 7 saw their jounin sensei sitting on the railing that surrounded the entire roof top.

Walking over they took a seat in front of him.

"So what now Sensei?" Sakura asked

"Well... How about we start with introductions, likes and dislikes, your dreams and hobbies, things like that, you, pinkie you're first."

"Since you're our Sensei shouldn't you introduce yourself first?"

"Me? Well My name's Hatake Kakashi, I don't feel like telling you my likes and dislikes, my dreams... hmm, oh and I have many hobbies."

'He said a lot, but all we really learned was his name' Naruto thought as he looked at the odd man with a deadpan look on his face.

"All right now it's your turn" Kakashi said pointing at Sakura

"Well my name is Haruno Sakura and I like..." Sakura glanced at Sasuke and blushed "My dream for the future is.. um" She glanced at Sasuke and blushed again, only this time it was accompanied with a girlish squeal "What I dislike is, Ino-pig, and Naruto"

"Yeah, yeah get in line Sakura" Naruto muttered

'Great a fangirl who cares more about love than ninjutsu' Kakashi thought as he looked at the blushing girl through a half-lidded eye.

"Alright broody you're up next" He said gesturing at Sasuke. "I'm Uchiha Sasuke there are many things I dislike, and almost nothing that I do. I don't have a dream... I have an ambition, to restore my clan to it's former glory and to kill a certain man."

'Wow Sasuke-kun is so cool'

'Like I thought, an Avenger'

'Hmm I wonder how I can tric- uh I mean convince Iruka-sensei to buy me ramen tonight' Were the thoughts of Sakura, Kakashi, and Naruto respectively in response to what Sasuke said.

"And finally blondie" The silver haired man said bringing Naruto's attention back to his surroundings,

"My name is Uzumaki Naruto, I like ramen, puppets, and my first Sensei. I dislike the Teme." He said pointing at Sasuke and ignoring the glare from Sakura. "My dream is to become the worlds greatest puppet master. My hobbies are building and maintaining my puppets."

'Well that not quite what I expected' Kakashi thought as he stared at the boy "Okay, well that's good, you each have your own ideas and you're all unique. Our first team meeting will be tomorrow morning."

Naruto looked excited, "Well what awesome kick-ass mission are we going to be going on Kakashi-sensei?" After staring at the blonde for a few seconds he answered his question, "A task the four of us will do together, we're doing a survival exercise." This surprised the three genin, "What? A survival exercise, are you serious?" Naruto said. Sakura seconded him, "But, didn't we already go through this stuff in the academy? That's how we got here isn't it?"

"Yes, but this isn't like your regular average training." Kakashi responded

"Why, What's different about it exactly?" Naruto asked. Kakashi just began laughing, irritating the boy, "What the hell is so funny?"

Kakashi stopped laughing to answer, "I could tell you, but you're not going to like it."

"Out of the 27 graduates who have just left the academy only 9 will actually be accepted as genin, the remaining 18 will be sent back to academy, in other words this is a make it or break it, pass or fail test… and the chance that you will fail is at least 66%."

The three genin had expressions on their faces reflecting their respective shock and discomfort over the situation until Naruto snapped "What the hell was the reason for the graduation exam then?"

"That was just to select candidates who might be genin or not. This is how it is, I decide whether or not you go back to the academy, so meet me at Training Ground 3 tomorrow at six a.m. and bring all your ninja gear."

"All right, that's it; you're dismissed, oh one more thing, don't eat breakfast tomorrow, or you might puke." Ignoring the looks on his student's faces he shunshined away.

Naruto broke the respective silence between the team, "Well, that sucks… Anyone want to try and figure out what's going on?"

Seeing Sakura ignore him to focus on trying to get a date with Sasuke and seeing Sasuke just not care forced Naruto to sigh.

"Didn't think so…" He said before heading back down the stairs to head home.

"Well whatever, this might turn out to be interesting after all" he said as a smirk appeared on his face.

**And that's all Folks, Until next time. Goodnight, good luck, and all that jazz. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I'll get to working on the next as soon as possible. **


	4. 4 Team 7's Last Test

**Alright people I'm back. And I guess that the first thing that I should say is that I'm sorry that I haven't updated in so long, but I was a lot busier than I expected to be recently. That and I wasn't fully satisfied with this chapter, so I rewrote large sections of it several times, hell I'm still not fully satisfied with it. Oh and to answer a question that a reader posted in the reviews I had Hinata blush, because she is a very shy person due to the way she was raised, and it seemed to make sense to me that if a shy person had someone that they didn't know just come up to them and say hi, then they would blush because of said shyness. The manga even showed Hinata blushing when she first met Neji. Anyways that's enough of my inane rambling, please enjoy the chapter.**

**Chapter 4: Team 7's Last Test**

Naruto had been the first to arrive at the arranged meeting spot. He was soon followed by Sasuke, and then Sakura. They had expected Kakashi to show up right after them, they couldn't have been more wrong. It took two hours for their sensei to finally arrive

"Hey guys, good morning!" He called out to them as he entered the clearing

"You're late!" Sakura screamed in reply,

"Yeah sorry about that, I had to carry a lost little old lady's grocery's home for her."

"You know, you're not really a good liar sensei." Naruto said from his place up on a tree branch.

"Really? I always thought I was a great liar. Anyways come down here and join us." Naruto jumped from his branch to the ground and walked over next to two teammates giving Kakashi a wide berth. Kakashi noticed this but said nothing as he walked over to the trio of logs and pulled out an alarm clock.

"This clock is set to go off at noon, whoever can't get one of these two bells will be tied to the log and won't get lunch. He said holding up the two small bells for his students to see, "Also whoever doesn't get a bell, fails and will be sent back to the Academy. The only way you're going to get one of these bell is if you come at me with the intent to kill."

"But sensei, if we do that you'll be in danger!" Sakura said worriedly

"So what? That just makes it all the more fun!" Naruto said, eager to get started.

"Good enthusiasm, now get ready to go when I say" Kakashi said, as the three genin tensed up ready to move. "Ready, Start!" The man yelled out and all four of them blurred from sight. "Good looks like they know how to hide themselves well enough" Kakashi said to himself as he looked around the new spot he was standing at.

"Yo sensei lets get this started, yeah?" Kakashi turned around and saw Naruto just standing there looking at him "You're a bit off in the head aren't you?" He said with a sweatdrop. Naruto simply shrugged, "Eh, maybe" he said and then charged at his sensei.

"Shinobi fighting style #1 Taijutsu" The man said as he watched Naruto draw closer. As Naruto threw his first punch Kakashi held up one hand to lazy block it, this did not go as expected however when Naruto latched onto his arm.

"You said come at you with the intent to kill, so I figured that this was the best approach." The boy said as he pulled down his arm warmer to reveal three ignited paper bombs stuck to his arm "Boom" he quipped, an evil smirk on his face. Kakashi's lone eye widened as the slips of paper exploded.

'What the hell was he thinking?' 'Kami, did he really just kill himself for a test?' were the thoughts of Sasuke and Sakura, respectively, as they watched from their hiding spots in the forest.

"Wow I didn't expect him to do that." Kakashi said from the branch he was standing on, overlooking the blast area.

'What? How did he?' Sasuke thought and then looked back to the site of the explosion and saw a burned up log through the clearing smoke. 'Ah Kawarimi no Jutsu (Substitution Jutsu), that explains it, but what about Naruto?' Kakashi Meanwhile, had pulled out a small orange book and began reading it while waiting for something to happen, and only looking up and around every once and awhile. He continued to do this until a mixture of kunai and shuriken slammed into the side of his head, his body began to tilt to the side, then it vanished in a puff of smoke, a log taking his place.

'Shit another Kawarimi! And now he knows where I am.' Sasuke thought as he jumped further into the forest to try and get another chance to take their sensei down.

XxXxX

Sakura was running through the forest not caring about the test, her only wish, to find Sasuke. However the sight of Kakashi a short ways in front of her, caused her to come to an abrupt stop. 'Oh good he didn't notice me' she thought and began thinking up a plan to get a bell away from him.

"Behind you." Turning at the sound of the voice Sakura came face to face with another Kakashi, whose hands were placed in the rat seal, she watched with half-lidded eyes as Kakashi's body seemed to break apart into leaves that swirled around her. "Huh? What's going on? Where'd sensei go?"

"Sakura"

"Sasuke-kun?" She asked turning in the direction of his voice. What she saw stopped the breath in her chest, kneeling on the ground in front of her was a bleeding, and battered Sasuke, covered in kunai and shuriken, looking like a human pin cushion and missing an arm. Sakura let out a blood curdling scream and promptly fainted from the sight.

"Shinobi fighting style #2 Genjutsu, Sakura fell for it easily; though I might have gone a bit far."

Deeper in the forest Naruto heard the scream and looked in the direction it came from for a brief moment before returning to what he was doing.

"You shouldn't let your enemies get behind you Naruto" Kakashi said from his crouched position behind the boy, he fingers in the tiger seal, and a evil glint in his eye. Naruto reacted instantly, spinning around he swung at Kakashi with his elbow, keeping the man from performing whatever technique he was planning to use

"Good reflexes Naruto, but you'll need more reach to be able to hit me like that."

"Then why are you bleeding sensei?" Kakashi's eye widened as he felt a trickling sensation coming from above his nose.

'What?' he thought as he brought his fingers to the bridge of his nose and took them away covered in blood

'How did that happen, he was nowhere near me.' At the sound of a pop Kakashi looked up to see that the boy had vanished in a puff of smoke.

"You're pretty good at sneaking around sensei, but I think I'm better at hiding, and I seem to know the forest better than you." Naruto's voice seemed to be coming from all around the forest and Kakashi couldn't pin down it's exact location.

"Here's a parting gift sensei." He said as four kunai with paper bombs attached landed around Kakashi.

"Shit" the jounin said before the paper bombs exploded as one around him.

"What is with that kid and explosions?" Kakashi said having once again utilized Kawarimi to escape from harm

"I don't see the problem with it, if the dobe hadn't used those bombs; I might have had a harder time finding you." Following the sound of the voice, Kakashi saw Sasuke standing amongst the branches of a tree "So you're going to try this time Sasuke?"

"Try? I won't try, I'll succeed. I'm better than those two."

"Say that after you get a bell." Sasuke quickly pulled and threw a handful of shuriken at Kakashi who swiftly jumped out of the way. Not pausing for a second Sasuke leapt from the tree using the thrust to put more force behind his fist as he flew at his sensei, who caught his punch with ease. Not wasting any movement Sasuke used his momentum to swing himself around to try and kick Kakashi in the face.

The silver haired man grabbed the leg before it connected; wrenching his hand free Sasuke tried to snatch one of the bells only to be blocked by a rising knee from Kakashi. Seeing how close the boy had come to the bells Kakashi threw him away from him and jumped back to increase the distance between them.

"Well you definitely seem to be better than the other two, well maybe, so far all Naruto's done is try to blow me up so I can't say for sure yet." Letting out his trademark "Hmn" Sasuke started making rapid hand seals ending with the tiger seal, and inhaled a large breath.

'What?! A genin shouldn't have the chakra necessary to use that technique!' Sasuke quickly proved Kakashi's thoughts wrong and that he had more than enough chakra to use Katon: Gokakyu no Jutsu (Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu) when a giant fireball flew from his mouth straight at Kakashi. When the fire faded away there was no sign of the man,

'He's gone! But where to? The sides, above? No, so where?'

"Below you. Doton: Shinjuu Zanshu no Jutsu (Earth Release: Inner Decapitation Skill)" Before he could react a hand shot out of the ground and grabbed hold of Sasuke's ankle, he was quickly dragged into the ground until only his head was visible

"Shinobi fighting style #3 Ninjutsu" Kakashi said as he emerged from the earth in front of the boy "You're definitely heads above the other two in that area, but like the saying goes, an exposed nail should always be hammered in, later." The man said with a laugh as he walked away. A few minutes of struggling to get free later Sasuke heard footsteps approaching him from behind.

"Man I'm glad Sakura's still unconscious, if she saw you like that she would probably pass out again" Naruto said as he walked in front of Sasuke with the pink haired girl under his arm. "What do you want dobe?"

"You should have figured it out by now that there's no way we can beat him by ourselves, we have to work together to get the bells"

"I don't need your help, I already got close to the bells, and next time I will get them" Naruto smirked and set Sakura down

"Don't worry with what I've got planned you'll definitely get a bell" he said while opening a small vial he had taken from his supply pouch and held it under Sakura's nose

"Sasuke-kun!" she exclaimed as she bolted upright and accidentally slammed her head into Naruto's face. "Where is he?" she asked looking around for him franticly "Where's Sasu...ke...kun" she stop talking when her eyes landed on Sasuke who was still buried in the ground up to his neck, she let out a shrill scream and promptly fainted once again causing a sweatdrop to form on Sasuke's head.

"It might be a good idea to dig me out before waking her up again" he said to Naruto who was holding onto his bleeding nose.

XxXxX

"Hey Sensei" Kakashi looked up from reading his little orange book to see Naruto leaning against a tree in front of him "Hello Naruto, are you going to try and get one of the bells now?"

"No I'm not really interested in that, all I really want to do is see how well my Kugutsu no Jutsu (Puppet Jutsu) stacks up against a jounin" Kakashi gave the boy an eye smile "I think you'll need a bit training before you're at my level"

"Well, we'll see" Naruto said making the cross seal "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu)" five clones popped into existence around him and immediately went on the offensive. Four of the clones charged in, two of them trying to distract the man so the others could get a hit in. Their attempts however failed as the silver haired jounin dodged and blocked their attacks.

Two of them were dispelled when Kakashi grabbed the shirt collar of a clone and flung him into another sending both of them into a tree where they vanished in a puff of smoke. The third clone was dispelled when Kakashi closed his book and slammed it into the clones face breaking his nose. One of the two remaining clones used the back of it's fellow clone as a springboard to get above Kakashi.

The clones' attempt to perform a heel drop on Kakashi's head failed when the man grabbed his leg and swung him around into the last clone dispelling them both.

"Heads up sensei!" heeding the warning Kakashi looked up, then quickly jumped back to avoid the falling Naruto; as soon as Naruto's feet hit the ground he was enveloped in a thick cloud of gray smoke.

As Kakashi watched the smoke waiting for the boy to make a move he was taken by surprise when a pair of cables shot from the smoke and wrapped around both of his legs and up around his chest lashing down one of his arms

"Sakura, Sasuke now!" Kakashi was blinded when a pair of flash bombs landed in front of him and went off, seizing the moment Sasuke rushed from his cover determined to snatch the bells from Kakashi's belt. But as his hand closed around the two small objects a ringing sound echoed across the forest and Kakashi disappeared replaced once again with a log.

"That was a pretty good try you guys, too bad that you ran out of time." Kakashi said as he walked back into view "By the way Naruto that's an interesting trick, were did you learn how to do it?" the man inquired as he watched the twin cables with Naruto's hands on the ends retract into his arms. 'Naruto' smirked as his body turned green and then broke apart into a large flurry of leaves revealing the puppet Kogane Saru

"It's something my first sensei taught me." Naruto replied as he dropped down from the tree branches.

XxXxX

Five minutes later the genin were back where the had first started and sitting in front of the logs, well Naruto and Sasuke were sitting, Sakura on the other hand had been tied to the log between the two boys.

"You guys did a good job back there so I've decided to give you another chance to get the bells after you're done eating, you have 15 minutes so eat fast. Oh and Sakura's not allowed to have any food, later" Kakashi said before departing with a puff of smoke and a wave. Naruto looked around to ensure that Kakashi was no longer around and then pulled a out a kunai and slashed through the ropes that bound Sakura to her log.

"Naruto, what are you doing, do you want Kakashi-sensei to get mad at us?"

"What, he never said that we couldn't cut you loose, did he?" Naruto replied, before holding out his lunch "Now here eat."

"Naruto, no! Kakashi-sensei definitely said I wasn't allowed to have any food"

"Yeah so, he's not here right now is he?" any further argument from Sakura was cut off when her stomach rumbled loudly, she sheepishly took the lunch from Naruto and muttered a quick thanks with a bright red blush on her face.

"Dobe, here" Sasuke said holding out his own partially eaten lunch "you need to eat too" "Thanks teme, but I'm fine, I ate breakfast this morning" Naruto replied waving off the offered food. As Sasuke retracted his arm a very angry looking Kakashi appeared before them in a large cloud of smoke

"You guys..." he began in a stern tone "Pass" he finished with an eye smile, his voice switching from upset to pleasant in an instant

"Huh?" was the response of the three kids who had been taken completely by surprise.

"You pass" Kakashi said again

"Wait I thought that the only way we could pass was by getting the bells from you sensei" Sakura said thoroughly confused by the turn of events

"As a ninja you must see underneath the underneath, the bell test was to see if you could accomplish a fundamental aspect of being a shinobi, do you know what that aspect is?" "Teamwork" Naruto answered

"That's right, the only way to get the bells was to work together, which you did"

"but there were only two bells so someone was going to fail sensei" Sakura said "Correct, which is the whole point of the test, to pit you against each other and see if you could work together anyways"

"But then why didn't you just pass us then, why wait till now?"

"I wanted to know how you were going to act after your attempt to get the bells failed, I needed to see if you did exactly as you were told or if you would disobey my order to help out your teammate. You should know that people who abandon their missions are scum, but people who abandon their teammates are worse than scum. So you should be happy to know that all you are is scum!" He said with an eye smile, getting deadpan looks from all of them in return.

"Alright that's all for today, tomorrow you will receive your first mission so make sure you get plenty of sleep tonight" Kakashi said turning to leave

"Sensei wait, can I ask you something?"

"Of course you can Naruto" Kakashi replied turning back around

"I've been wondering for awhile now, what's that stone for, the one with all the names on it?" he asked pointing at the rectangular white stone that sat a short distance behind the logs. Naruto had been curious about what the stone was for ever since he had noticed it while training with Sasori. Kakashi's eye narrowed slightly as he looked at the stone

"That stone is a list of Konoha's heros." "Cool, how did they become hero's?"

"they gave their lives in service to Konoha" Kakashi replied "My best friends name is on this memorial stone." Kakashi stood and silently stared at the stone for a moment before turning around to face the genin once more. "well that's enough somber thoughts for now, you guys have the rest of the day off so go do what you want." he said and then quickly vacated the area in a shunshin

"Hey Sasuke-kun since we've got some free time do you want to go on a date with me?" Sakura asked the dark haired boy excitedly, her enthusiasm was cut short when Sasuke quickly said no, and walked off back towards the village. glancing at the now depressed girl, Naruto shrugged his shoulders and stood up.

"well I'll see you tomorrow Sakura" Sakura sullenly raised her head to return the farewell, but stopped when she noticed something on the boy's arm

"Hey Naruto when did you get hurt?" Naruto turned his head to look at her, a confused look on his face "What are you talking about I'm not hurt"

"Then how come you elbows bleeding?" looking at his right elbow Naruto saw what the pinkete was talking about, a small area of the bandages at his elbow were stained the dark crimson of drying blood. "Oh right, that's not my blood, its Kakashi's"

Sasuke, who had almost reached the edge of the clearing, froze when he heard that then turned around an quickly walked back to his teammates

"You managed to hurt him, how?" he asked getting right up into Naruto's face, causing Naruto to take a step back to maintain some distance between himself and Sasuke

"He tried to sneak up on me earlier, to use some weird jutsu on me, but I knew he was there and I attacked him. All I was able to do was hit him on his nose with my elbow, which is why there's blood on it."

"So you, simply got lucky and managed to land a hit on him?"

"Yeah pretty much, is that all?" Sasuke didn't reply, he just looked off in thought and Naruto, figuring that the conversation was over, walked off leaving his team alone in the clearing.

XxXxX

_(Later on back in the Village)_

As Naruto walked through the Village streets he couldn't shake the feeling that someone was watching him. Looking around to locate the source of the feeling, he noticed a rather peculiar looking rock behind him.

"You know, most rocks aren't square, and they don't usually have eye holes" he said to the 'rock'. At first nothing happened, then who ever was attempting to hide, and failing miserably, let out a loud sneeze, getting Naruto to sweatdrop.

"Rocks don't usually sneeze either, now c'mon get out from under there" he said as he picked up a pebble and flicked it at the 'rock'. When there was still no movement from the person to remove themselves from under their useless cover Naruto sighed and lifted the fake rock into the air via the chakra thread he had attached to it with the pebble. Underneath the faux stone was a small boy, with a rather surprised look on his face, wearing a yellow shirt with the Konoha symbol on it, gray shorts, a long blue scarf, and a gray helmet with a hole out the top to allow a tuft of hair to stick out. "So what do you want" Naruto asked again

"You're him right, the guy who beat my grandpa?"

"Huh, what are you talking about? Who's-"

"Please teach me!" the boy practically shouted cutting Naruto off "What, no, who are-"

"Please boss I'll do whatever you tell me to do." The boy pleaded once again cutting Naruto off. In response to being interrupted again, Naruto clamped his hand over the boys mouth to shut him up.

"First things first kid, who the hell are you?" he asked before taking his hand from the kids face, "Sorry boss, my name is Konohamaru, and I'm the Hokage's grandson" "You're the grandson of Hokage-jiji? That's pretty cool"

"Yeah I guess so, will you teach me now?" Konohamaru asked

"No" Naruto replied and walked away "Oh, c'mon boss, if you could beat my grandpa I know you'll be an awesome teacher" Konohamaru said, chasing after the blond boy

"No, besides I don't know where you heard that, but I didn't beat the Hokage, I just stole a scroll from the tower" Naruto said as his favorite ramen stand came into sight. Deciding that getting some food would be nice he made a bee-line for the entrance

"Yeah but to steal that scroll you had to get around gramps, so teach me how you did that" "No" he replied again as he entered Ichiraku's. Seeing him enter Ayame raised her hand in greeting. "Hey Naruto-kun, what can I get for you today?"

"I'll take four bowls miso pork ramen for starts Ayame-neechan"

"Sure thing, and how about you?" she asked looking down at Konohamaru

"I'll just have a bowl of miso ramen" Ayame nodded and walked into the back to fill their orders while the two boys took a seat.

"So why do you want me to train you anyways?" Konohamaru sat in silence for a moment before replying "My grandpa name me Konohamaru after the village, but no one ever calls me that, it's always honorable grandson. Nobody sees me as me, I'm sick of it, that's why I want the title of Hokage now. So that people will finally acknowledge me as my own person" Naruto shook his head and chuckled

"You moron, who would acknowledge a kid like you?"

"What the hell would you know about being acknowledged?" Konohamaru angrily asked.

"I know more than you" Naruto replied as Ayame brought out their food. Picking up his chopsticks Naruto attacked his food with a ravenous hunger after a quick itadakimasu. Konohamaru realizing that Naruto wasn't going to say anything more, followed suit. After he had finished and paid for his meal Naruto stood up and walked to the entrance, pausing once he reached it.

"Well come on, if you really want to learn something then follow me" he said and walked away from the ramen stand. Konohamaru's eyes went wide and he dashed from the shop chasing after the older boy, Ayame watched him go with a smile and a giggle.

After walking awhile Naruto found what he had been looking for, a small forested area that looked to be deserted.

"Alright, what I used to get by Hokage-jiji, wasn't really a technique, I simply used smoke to block his view so that I could get away from him. But I added to that by erasing my presence to make myself harder to detect. If you can learn to do that, and add to the cover given by the smoke then you can put some distance between yourself and an enemy so that you can launch a sneak attack, set a trap, perform a jutsu, or simply escape, if you really have to call it something, then you can call it Kemuri de Shoshitsu no Jutsu (Vanishing in Smoke Jutsu)" Konohamaru watched as Naruto removed one of his specially designed smoke bombs from the pouch at his back and threw it at the ground, where it exploded in a cloud of thick dark smoke.

The young boy stared at intently at the cloud waiting and watching for Naruto to make a move. Nothing happened, instead the smoke cleared to reveal that Naruto had disappeared leaving Konohamaru alone in the woods.

"Boss? Hey Boss where'd you go?" he called out looking around for any sign of his blond teacher, he neither heard nor saw anything.

Walking forward to where Naruto had been, he found himself suddenly yanked off his feet and hoisted into the air, where he hung upside down as Naruto walked out from behind some bushes. "As you can see it's pretty easy to catch an unsuspecting enemy in a trap"

"Wow, that was awesome boss, but can you me down please?" Naruto nodded and proceeded to cut the wire that was holding Konohamaru in the air, letting him land head first on the ground. Sitting up with a quiet groan he cradled the top of his head in his hands "So you're going to teach me how to do that?"

"Well that part of the jutsu is really easy to do, so I'm going to teach you how to hide and detect traps first."

"But I already know how to hide"

"A square rock with eye holes doesn't count as hiding" Naruto said with a sigh. 

XxXxX

The rest of the day consisted of Konohamaru running across the village attempting to hide from Naruto and avoiding whatever traps that the older boy had laid, he wasn't very successful at first, but eventually he managed to avoid being detected longer, and he was able to locate and circumvent most of the snares that were set to string him up, most, not all; he still wound up triggering seven of the traps, and was left hanging upside down until Naruto decided to cut him loose. After four hours of their village wide hide and seek, the two of them returned to the section of forest that they had started from and began to spar.

Naruto held back quite a bit in order not to hurt the young boy, in spite of this, by the time they were finished Konohamaru was breathing heavily and covered in bumps and bruises. Though most of said injuries happened because Konohamaru seemed to have the ability to not only trip over his scarf, but also his feet and sometimes nothing at all

"So what did you learn today?" Naruto asked the exhausted boy sitting on the ground in front of him.

"I learned that you're a sadist that loves to set traps"

"And?"

"I learned how to spot and avoid your traps, mostly"

"Good, anything else?"

"I found out that you're stronger and sneakier than I am"

"Yes I am, though you could become just as strong and stealthy as I am, maybe even more so"

"How do I do that?"

"By working hard; those skills that I showed you, I didn't learn how to do them quickly, I worked my ass off, to learn how to do them properly."

"Remember this, there are no short cuts, if you want something then you work, struggle, and earn it" After he was done talking Naruto turned and walked off, but before he left the area he threw a small satchel over his shoulder

"Those are some of my homemade smoke bombs, use them to make your own tricks and techniques, and if you want more training, then you're going to have to show me that you're ready for it, later Konohamaru" with that said Naruto leapt into the trees and departed from the area.

Barely a minute later a man dressed in black clothing and wearing a pair of round sunglasses jumped from the trees and landed next to the sitting Konohamaru

"Honorable Grandson, there you are, I've been looking all over the village for you; how did you get those injuries?"

"I fell"

"I see, well come on its time for your training, don't forget that doing as I say is the best short cut to becoming the Hokage" Konohamaru glanced at the man then stood up and walked over to the satchel that Naruto had left for him

"There are no short cuts, huh?" he muttered as he opened it and took out one of the small cylinders "What was that Honorable Grandson?"

"Just something that someone told me Ebisu-Sensei" he said as he activated the smoke bomb and dropped it to the ground, the small clearing was once more filled with thick dark smoke, that left Ebisu coughing heavily as he jumped clear of the cloud and waited for it to dissipate. Once it did Ebisu found that Konohamaru was nowhere to be found

"Ah! Honorable Grandson where did you go now?" Ebisu cried as he returned to the trees in search of his wayward charge. A few seconds later Konohamaru dropped the bark colored piece of cloth from in front of him. "Hmm, Kemuri de Shoshitsu no Jutsu works pretty well, I wonder what else I can use it for"

XxXxX

_(Three weeks later)_

The day after he had met Konohamaru, Naruto had shown up at his teams meeting spot, eager for his teams first mission and hoping that they got a relatively awesome one.

Saying that he and his squad mates had been put off when they learned that their first missions were nothing more than glorified chores would be putting it mildly, well in the case of Naruto at least.

Sakura simply went along with it, Sasuke had been indifferent as always, and Naruto had been down right pissed off. After all the training he had gone through with Sasori, he wanted to try out his skills in the field, but with D-rank missions the only skill he was able to use was his traps, and that was only when Tora, the cat that belonged to the Daimyo's wife, ran away. Which seemed to occur at a rather surprising rate. Which led them to their current mission, Tora had once again fled from his master and was now running around Konoha trying to hide from his pursuers, this was the second time that Team 7 had been chosen for this assignment. "Is everyone in position?" Kakashi asked his team via his walkie-talkie's headset

"Hai sensei", "Yeah", "I'm good, just waiting for the cat to show himself" came the replies from Sakura, Sasuke, and Naruto respectively.

"So the traps set then?" "Set and baited, but that doesn't mean that he'll go for it, he didn't last time, so be ready to chase him if Tora runs."

Naruto was sitting on a branch halfway up a tree staring at a pile of fish sitting on top of a large leaf, and at the cat that had just entered the area and was now circling the food as if trying to determine whether or not it was safe to approach. Hunger seemed to win out in the end because Tora took a few steps forwards and bit into the fish.

Unfortunately for him this activated the pressure pad underneath the leaf which in turn caused the walls of the cage that had been covered in a thin layer of dirt to lift up and slam shut around the cat, he of course was not happy

"The traps been triggered, and he's in there, and I have to say he looks rather pissed" Naruto said as he watched the animal below him, at the moment Tora was darting around the cage looking for a way out and swiping at the bars in a futile attempt to get out.

"Yeah, I'm not carrying him this time" Naruto said to his teammates as they arrived.

"Why, just cause he scratched you a bit last time?" Sakura asked with a slightly mocking tone Naruto stared at her with a deadpan look on his face

"Last time, I picked him up and he pretty much turned my face into a tic-tac-toe grid, so yeah I'm not carrying him" Sakura rolled her eyes and picked up the cage "Oh, stop being such a baby Naruto".

Kakashi spoke up before Naruto could respond "Alright retrieval of lost pet Tora complete, again, well lets go return him and get another mission, shall we"

"I hope we get a more interesting one this time" Naruto muttered to himself as he followed after his team, making sure to stay out of the reach of the cats claws.

XxXxX

_(The Hokage's Tower)_

After returning Tora to his owner and watching her put him in a crushing bear hug again, Team 7 looked to the Hokage and Iruka for their next mission "Hmm for Team 7's next mission you have the choice of walking the dogs from the Inuzuka Clan kennel, babysitting an elder's grandson, or pulling weeds from the garden of an old lady"

"No way! C'mon old man aren't there any more kick ass missions that we could do?" Naruto called out. "Naruto! You're just a rookie genin barely into your career as a ninja, you have to do D-ranked missions until you build enough experience to go higher on the ranking chart." Iruka yelled at him.

Naruto scoffed, "Yeah, because repeatedly catching a runaway cat is such an experience building assignment. Come on, just give us a shot at a higher ranked mission, we can pull it off."

Sarutobi started to chuckle, "Well Naruto-kun I can see you feel strongly about this but Kakashi is your sensei, so the final decision is his." Kakashi looked at his students before answering, "I believe Team 7 is adequately prepared for a C-ranked mission." Naruto and Sakura smiled while Sasuke began smirking, 'I guess I finally get a real chance to test how good I am, I guess I should thank the dobe.'

"I guess you should meet your client for this mission then, you will be escorting him from here to the land of Waves; you may come in now!" A side door opened revealing a relatively large man with white hair and a goatee, it was quite obvious he was loaded off of drink that he had in his hand. The man belched loudly before speaking "I'm Tazuna the super bridge-builder, I expect super-protection on this trip."

**Alright I'm going to end it there, the next chapter will be the start of the Wave Arc. If anyone has any comments, concerns, or death threat, please leave them in the reviews and I will get to them as soon as I can. Also on that note if anybody has any suggestions for this story, please feel free to leave them, since this is my first story I would appreciate help with it, same goes for people who want this story to have Naruto in a relationship, I seem to suck at those (or at least I did in the prototypes for other story's that I thought up). Peace Y'all, till next time which I hope is sooner rather than later.**


	5. 5 Cross Country Shenanigans

**Wow it has been awhile folks. **

**I really didn't mean for it to take me this long to churn out another chapter but it did. **

**Also I don't own Naruto; however I am studying necromancy and will soon raise an undead army to do my bidding much like that guy from ****Monster Hunter: Vendetta****. Which is an awesome book by Larry Correia. If you don't know it you should definitely check it out. **

**Without further ado here's the chapter.**

**Chapter 5**

**Cross Country Shenanigans**

"Team 7's mission is to escort Tazuna-san back to his home country of Nami no Kuni, and provide him with protection until the bridge he is building is complete, Tazuna-san do you have anything you wish to add?"

Tazuna took a swig of sake and belched before looking at the genin gathered in front of him. "These are the ninja that are supposed to be protecting me? They look like a bunch of baby face brats, especially the stupid-looking short one in the middle." The bridge-builder said, looking pointedly at Naruto.

Said ninja, had been making a mental list of what he was going to bring with him for the journey and completely missed the insult.

Kakashi, thankful that Naruto hadn't been paying attention took a step forward, "Despite their appearance, my students are quite skilled, and even if they aren't enough to deal with whatever we may encounter, I am a jonin, an elite ninja, we should be more than enough to protect you on this journey." He said before addressing his students "Alright we'll leave at noon, you have two hours to pack some supplies, meet up at the main gate when you're done" Team 7, including Naruto who had tuned back in around the middle of what Kakashi was saying, nodded and departed to pack their gear.

The blond boy returned to his apartment quickly gathering all the supplies that he figured he would need for the duration of the mission.

He then sat at his table with an open sealing scroll in front of him with several seals to help organize its contents, in this case extra puppet limbs to replace the ones attached to Naruto in the event that the limbs that he was using were damaged beyond use.

Looking over the seals he selected one and unsealed the pre-bandaged leg held within. Rolling his pants up to the metal band that attached his prosthetic leg to what was left of his real leg, Naruto released the bolts that secured the puppet appendage and quickly swapped the legs.

After going through a few stretches to ensure that he could reach his full range of motion with it he sealed the replaced leg and packed all of his gathered supplies into a satchel.

Naruto set a few traps, locked his apartment, and set off into Konoha's streets to kill some time. After a while of wandering through the streets aimlessly and ignoring the looks that most of the villagers gave him, he headed towards the main gate to meet his team and their client, pausing only to stop by a weapon shop and pick an order he had made.

Upon arriving he found that both Tazuna and Kakashi were already there "Hey Kakashi-sensei what's going on there's still thirty minutes to go until it noon, why are you here?"

"I can be on time when I need to be Naruto" The scarecrow like man responded, not bothering to put down his little orange book.

"Then why don't you do it more often?" This time Kakashi turned to look at Naruto and gave him an eye smile "Don't feel like it"

Naruto gave the man a deadpan stare and walked past him, heading towards the guard house and to the two ninja posted inside

"Morning Kotetsu, Izumo" he said to the two men in charge of guarding the gate Kotetsu Hagane was a chunin with a bandage on his nose, and wildly spiked black hair. He was dressed in the garb that the higher-up shinobi usually wore, his partner Izumo Kamizuki was of the same rank and dressed similarly, with his hitae-ate in a bandanna and the bangs of his brown hair covering his right eye.

"Hey Naruto you here to see if your friends come back again?" Izumo asked; Naruto had been coming by the guard house every two weeks for the past few years to see if Sasori had returned to Konoha, he never had.

During this time he had become good friends with the two chunin. "No not this time, my team got its first C-rank mission today and we have to leave Konoha for a while, so I thought that I would say good-bye before I left"

"Wow, you got a C-rank after being a genin for only a few weeks? That's pretty cool kid, what's the mission?"

"We have to escort that man back to his home in Nami no Kuni" Naruto replied pointing over his shoulder at Tazuna.

"Lucky, I wish we could get an escort mission, nothing ever happens guarding the gate it gets so damn boring" Kotetsu complained

"What are you talking about, by guarding this gate we're keeping Konohagakure and the villagers within safe, there's no better mission than that" admonished Izumo

"Says you" his partner countered "I'd rather be off somewhere rescuing beautiful women so that I fall eternally into their good graces."

"Yeah like that'll ever happen" Izumo scoffed rolling his eyes

"Hey it could too happen! Who knows how many women are just waiting to be rescued by me beyond this gate" Kotetsu said, a distant look in his eyes

"Moron"

"What was that?"

"…What was what?" Izumo asked ignoring the glare being sent his way.

"Well, not that this conversation isn't interesting or anything but the rest of my team's going to be showing up soon, so I'll see you guys later" Naruto said interrupting the pair before they could really start arguing.

"Alright kid have fun on your trip we'll see you when you get back"

"Yeah see ya later, also if Sasori comes through while I'm away will you tell me when I get back?"

"Yes Naruto, if your boyfriend come back while your gone I'll tell you as soon as you walk through the gate" Kotetsu said smirking at the tic marks that appeared on Naruto's head, but instead of insulting him back Naruto simply smiled in an impish fashion "Thanks guys, later" he said and walked off to stand next to his team

"Huh that was a little unexpected"

"You do know that he's going to get you back for that right?" Izumo asked

"I'm a chunin, he's a genin, what could he possibly do?"

"Well don't say I didn't warn you when he does do something, I'm going to get some food you want anything?"

"Yeah can you get me a bowl of miso ramen from Ichiraku's?"

As Izumo walked off the final two members of Team 7 showed up.

"Well now that everyone's here we can get moving" Kakashi said, closing his book

"Hai sensei"

"Yeah I'm good to go to" Tazuna grumbled out

"Alright lets go then" Kakashi said taking the lead out the gate, closely followed by his genin and their client.

Kotetsu waved as they walked by, giving Naruto a smug smirk, which the boy ignored. Chuckling to himself Kotetsu leaned back and watched as they left before turning his attention back to anyone who was entering or leaving Konoha, five minutes later though he was once again bored, and a soft ticking sound that he had noticed a couple of minutes earlier was starting to irritate him.

"What the hell is that?" he muttered looking around for the source of the noise. Walking out of the booth he glanced about trying to find where the sound was coming from.

After a few moments he noticed a small rectangular box leaning against the booth. Picking it up and turning the box over he saw a chibi version of Naruto's face with a large grin on it moving in a slow circle.

"What the hell is this thing?" he muttered as he watched the face stop moving, there was a small ding and the box exploded in his hands.

Izumo had been returning with their food when he saw Kotetsu picking up the box and had decided to hang back just in case, now he was glad he had done so as he walked up to his partners singed form, laughing so hard he was nearly in tears.

"I told you that he was going to get you back for that comment, and you might want to take look in a mirror" he managed to choke out between laughter.

Kotetsu pulled a small mirror from a pocket and looked at his reflection, his eyes went wide at what he saw "GOD DAMN IT BRAT WHEN I SEE YOU AGAIN YOU'RE DEAD, YOU HEAR ME DEAD!" he shouted at the top of his lungs.

XxXxX

"Hey Naruto did you hear someone shouting just now?" Sakura asked

Naruto looked at her and then in the direction that they had come from "It was probably just the wind through the leaves, or something like that" He replied with a shrug.

Sakura glanced back towards of Konoha before shrugging as well and moved to catch up with her team.

(Two hours later)

After a while of walking Sakura decided to inquire on something she was curious about

"Uh... Tazuna-san, can I ask you something?"

"What?"

"You're from Nami no Kuni, right?"

"Yes and that's where we're going, what of it?"

"Well I was wondering are there any ninja in your country?"

At that Kakashi chose to chime in "No there are no ninja in Nami no Kuni, which is why Tazuna-san hired us to escort him back"

"Sounds like a nice place" Naruto said, not really listening as he fiddled with a small puppet he had been building

"What are you making there Naruto?" Kakashi asked looking up from his book.

"Just this" he replied holding up his newest puppet for all to see. It was designed to look like a butterfly with large multi-colored wings

"Oh, wow Naruto it's so pretty" Sakura giggled as she watched the young puppeteer use a chakra thread to lift the small puppet off his hand.

Naruto's creation really was quite a sight to look at as it fluttered around the group, its wings even moved to increase its realistic look.

Tazuna was less impressed by the fake insect. "So what's the point of it? Is it just supposed to be something that's nice to look at?" He asked as Naruto landed his creation on Sakura's shoulder

"Sort of, yeah. The way I see it, if you're busy looking at the wings then maybe you won't notice the hypodermic needle loaded with poison sticking out the end of the puppet"

"WHAT!" Sakura shrieked as she swatted the butterfly off her shoulder "You had better have been joking Naruto" she said glaring at Naruto as she clenched her hand into a fist

"Don't worry Sakura I haven't installed the needle yet, I didn't want to inject myself on accident while I was building it"

"Just keep that thing away from me" she said making a mental note to keep a closer eye on any insect that got too close to her.

"Hey dobe I've been wondering, where did you learn how to use puppets anyways?"

The blond boy was quiet about it for a moment before answering "A traveling artist taught me how to use them."

Sasuke raised an eyebrow at Naruto's answer but decided that inquiring further about wasn't really worth the effort. Sakura however was still curious and began bugging Naruto to reveal more about his teacher.

As the group passed by a small puddle in the road, Kakashi spared it a passing glance and returned to his book. A few seconds after he passed a pair of ninja, wearing horned Kiri hitae-ate rose out of the puddle, each of them were wearing a large clawed gauntlet on one hand, with a bladed chain connected between them.

Without making a sound one of the pair leapt at Kakashi and wrapped the chain around his body.

"One down" they said together; with a sharp pull at both ends the surprised man was sliced into several pieces.

"Two down" they said leaping at Naruto, their advance was cut short when their bladed chain was pinned to a tree by a shuriken and kunai from Sasuke who had jumped toward them, landing on their arms he grabbed both of the gauntlets and kicked both of the Kiri ninja in the face.

Reacting quickly the ninja duo detached the chain, one of them charged at Tazuna, while the other circled to attack Naruto.

As the shinobi appeared in front of him and slashed downwards, Naruto stopped the attack with his right arm

"Time for you to die boy" The man growled as he dug his claws deep into Naruto's arm.

Naruto responded by springing forward and slamming his right knee into his enemy's stomach

"I don't think so" he said as the ninja's eyes widened in shock and pain

"I'm just full of surprises aren't I?" he quipped as he pulled back his leg, removing the leg's hidden blade from the man's stomach.

His enemy jumped back, releasing Naruto's arm and ripping some of the bandages free, he clutched at his wound to try and stem the bleeding

"For that boy, I'm going to kill you slowly" he growled, murder in his eyes

Before he could make another move though, he was yanked backwards and placed in a choke hold by Kakashi who was carrying the unconscious form of the other Kiri ninja over his shoulder

"Hmm, not bad Naruto you stood against one of the Demon Mist Brothers and came out unscathed, that's not something many genin could have done, the same goes for the two of you as well" he said looking over at his other two genin "Good job in keeping Tazuna-san safe"

He looked back at Naruto and then to his arm "You might want to redo your bandages Naruto" he said in a low voice.

Naruto looked down at his arm and saw patches of wood under the torn strips of cloth. He quickly pulled out a spare roll of cloth that he carried in his pack and started to repair the damaged sections as Kakashi tied the pair of ninja to a tree and bandaged the stomach of the one that Naruto had stabbed.

"These two are Gozu and Meizu, they're chunin from Kirigakure known as the Demon Brothers, and they are known for continuing to fight no matter what"

"You were prepared for us, how?"

"On a day as sunny as this, when it hasn't rained in weeks, there's no way that there would have been a puddle it's just common sense"

"If you knew that they were there, why didn't you do something, why let your brats fight?"

"I knew they were lying in wait, but I didn't know who they were after"

"Meaning what exactly?"

"Meaning, were these two after one of us or, were they targeting you, Tazuna-san?" He mussed looking at the bridge builder "I wanted to find out and their actions made it obvious"

"So you've got all the answers huh?" Meizu chuckled "Well then what are you going to do about the boy, my claws are coated in poison and I sank them deep into his arm"

Kakashi quirked a hidden eyebrow and glanced at the blond as he finished rewrapping his arm

"Hey Naruto, these guys were using poison, you feeling alright?"

"Yeah I'm fine he didn't cut me anywhere" Meizu's eyes widened as the boy walked up looking no worse for the wear

"That's impossible I know I stabbed you"

"Really, where I don't see any blood on me" Naruto mocked looking himself over.

While Naruto was busy making fun of the Kiri ninja Kakashi focused once more on Tazuna

"We were hired to protect you from thieves and gangs on the journey to your home, and then the continued protection of your person until the bridge is complete. You never mentioned that we would be going against ninja, which raises this mission to a B-rank at the very least. I cannot in good judgment allow this mission to continue"

He paused to let Tazuna think about that "however my team has shown me that they can handle themselves well enough, so I'll leave it to them to decide"

"I think that we should continue on sensei" Naruto said as he shoved his discarded bandages into Meizu's uncovered mouth to gag him. The man's rebreather was now safely packed away in the boy's bag to be used with future projects

"We wanted this mission, so we can't just give up now; we have to see it through to the end"

Sasuke was the next to speak up "I agree with Naruto on this and anyways if this is the best the enemy has to throw at us; then I think we'll be fine"

Sakura just nodded when Kakashi looked her way.

"Well Tazuna-san I guess you're in luck, we will be continuing forth with the mission."

Tazuna looked relieved but at the same time troubled, "Kakashi-san there's something that I need to tell you"

XxXxX

A diminutive man dressed in a business suit and small round sunglasses walked into a darkened room, coming face to face with a dark haired man with bandages that concealed his mouth and nose. Next to him lay a sword that was as long as the man was tall.

"What the hell do you want Gato?"

"The Demon Brothers failed, I'm starting to think hiring you was a mistake Zabuza…" The man, Gato said

Zabuza mused over this information for a moment, "So Tazuna's guards were able to defeat them huh?

Gato shook his head, "If I knew that this is all that hiring you ninjas would bring me I would never have shelled out the cash to hire you in the first place, what a waste."

Zabuza lifted his Kubikiriboucho (Decapitating Carving Knife) up to Gato's throat, "This time I'll go myself and we'll just see how Kakashi handles the 'Demon of the Hidden Mist.'"

XxXxX

Naruto stood on the shore and watched as the boat that the Konoha group had hired to bring them to Wave vanished into the thick mists that covered the entire coast line.

On the long ride across the water Tazuna and told them the reason why he had gone to Konoha to hire ninja; the business man Gato.

Gato had come to Nami no Kuni almost a year prior and had been slowly draining the country dry he had brought in thugs to terrorize the residents and to enforce his will.

Gato viewed the bridge as a direct threat to his control and was willing to go any lengths to ensure that Tazuna died before the bridge was completed. Tazuna had also told them of his daughter and grandson, using the two to further guilt trip the Konoha shinobi into completing the mission, just to be safe.

Now they were walking through the forest for Tazuna's house. Naruto was on edge, after all the months of training with Sasori he could feel when someone was watching him; and right now someone definitely was, he just wasn't sure where from.

A soft rustling in the bushes caught his attention and he immediately threw a shuriken at the source, freaking the hell out of Sakura as the bladed star passed right in front of her.

"What the hell are you doing Baka!" she screamed

"There was someone there" he said walking into the bushes, only to pop out a few moments later holding a white rabbit, his shuriken stuck deep in its skull

"Whoops, rabbit stew anyone?" he asked, scratching the back of his head sheepishly

"Naruto please be careful with those, they're very dangerous" Kakashi stressed with a strained smile before Sakura began chewing the blond out for killing the small animal.

Kakashi, feeling on edge as well, looked around the area, before his eye widened and he lunged forward.

"GET DOWN!" he yelled grabbing Sakura and Tazuna pulling them to the ground as a large blade spun through the air where their heads had been and continued until it impaled itself in a nearby tree, a tall shirtless figure with bandages on his face appeared on the handle of the weapon.

"I have to say I was surprised to hear that Gozu and Meizu were defeated, but seeing that they were facing off against the legendary 'Sharingan no Kakashi', it's not so surprising after all"

'Sharingan, what's he talking about?' Sasuke wondered as he glanced at Kakashi

"'Demon of the Mist' Zabuza Momochi. What are you here for?"

The bandaged man raised a nonexistent eyebrow at the question "I'm here for the bridge-builder obviously, if you hand him over now, I'll let you and your brats live."

"Protect Tazuna, I'll deal with Zabuza." Kakashi instructed as he took hold of his hitae-ate and pulled it up. The three genin surrounded Tazuna in a defensive position to guard against an attack.

"Oh no, a defensive formation" Zabuza mocked as he blurred from sight, taking his giant blade with him and appeared again standing on the surface of a nearby lake, he quickly flew through a few hand-signs.

"Kirigakure no Jutsu (Hidden Mist Jutsu)." The mist in the area began to grow thicker and visibility dropped for the combatants.

"Do you think a simple formation like that can stop someone like me?" he asked letting out a chilling laugh "Eight choices …Liver, lungs, spine, clavicle vein, jugular, brain, kidneys, heart …which one should I go after?"

Naruto glanced around, as the mist grew thicker and killing intent began pouring in, he'd grown somewhat accustomed to it while training with Sasori; but Sasuke, who had never felt it before, began to tremble slightly in fear.

Noticing this, Kakashi smiled at the boy "Don't worry Sasuke I'll never let my comrades die" he promised

"That's touching Kakashi, too bad it's a lie!" Zabuza exclaimed appearing between the genin and Tazuna, only to receive a kunai to the gut from Naruto, instead of a heavy blood flow however, Zabuza's body collapsed into a puddle of water.

Kakashi's eyes widened at the sight 'A Mizu Bunshin (Water Clone)!'

"Not bad" before he could react, Kakashi was bifurcated at the waist.

Sakura screamed at the sight until his body turned into water as well.

'He copied my technique even in this mist?' Zabuza halted as he felt a blade at his throat.

"Don't move, it's over"

"Over?" the nukenin chuckled "Do you really think that you defeat me with such monkey-like imitations?"

"You're looking rather defeated to me Zabuza"

"Am I really?" came a voice from behind him.

Kakashi ducked low, barely avoiding the giant blade as it sliced through the air just over his head. Unfortunately this left him in a vulnerable position, one that Zabuza hastened to exploit as he kicked the masked man in the side and sent him hurtling out onto the lake.

Kakashi resurfaced in time to hear Zabuza call out the name of a jutsu.

"Suiro no Jutsu (Water Prison Jutsu)" the water rose up around him and immobilized him. "We'll settle things between us later, right now I have a job to finish"

"You three take Tazuna and run! This battle ended the second I was captured." Kakashi yelled to his students as Zabuza made another water clone

"They can run all they want Kakashi, I'll just finish you off and hunt them down afterwards; it won't matter where they go they'll never get away!" Zabuza cackled

The water clone charged and grabbed Naruto throwing him over his shoulder and out into the water, Sasuke pushed Sakura and Tazuna out of the way as Zabuza kicked him in the face and slammed him to the ground with his foot.

Sasuke screamed in agony as Zabuza ground his heel against his sternum. Kakashi could do nothing but watch,

"Damn it Zabuza stop, they're just kids!" The clone pressed his heel down harder as the real Zabuza spoke.

"You're wrong Kakashi, they're no longer kids, the second they put on those hitae-ate they stopped being kids and became shinobi, and this is a world where people will kill them just because of where they're from. This is the life that they chose! They only have two options now, kill or be killed!"

The water clone paused in its crushing of Sasuke's chest as something reflected sunlight into his eyes for a flash, right before he felt a tightening sensation around his throat.

"Hey teme, get your foot off of Sasuke"

The Zabuza-clone turned to see a soaking wet Naruto sans hitae-ate holding onto the razor wire that was wrapped around his throat.

"And what are you going to do if I don't?"

"Well I've always wanted to see if I could cut someone's head off like this, you're not really a person but I guess you'll do for a test"

The clone smirked "Hate to disappoint you, but that only works if the wire stays taut brat!" the clone ran at Naruto preparing to cut him down, he was almost caught by surprise when Naruto darted forward, jumped, and tried to smash him in the face with a haymaker, the clone easily caught the boys fist and pulled him to the ground.

"That was truly pathetic kid; did you really think that would work?"

"Not really, but I got you right where I want you" twisting his arm Naruto revealed a lit explosive tag.

"Boom"

Zabuza watched as the explosion destroyed his clone returning it to the water from which it was made with a raised non-existent eyebrow. "Did that kid really just blow himself up to take out my clone, there's no way he could be that stupid right?"

'Well that was familiar looking' Kakashi thought 'I didn't see him leave the water, so where is he?'

Almost on queue a pair of arms connected to steel cables broke through the surface on either side of Zabuza and grabbed hold of his body.

The Kiri nukenin barely had time to say "What the Fuck?" before he was dragged under. With Zabuza no longer maintaining the jutsu the water prison collapsed and freed Kakashi.

The silver-haired man jumped back and began looking for signs of conflict in the depths; he didn't have to look for long as Naruto burst from the water and crashed onto the shore, bleeding from a cut across his chest.

"That wasn't bad kid" Zabuza said as he pulled himself out to once more stand on the water's surface, grimacing slightly he yanked the kunai that had been jammed in his leg free with a spurt of blood.

"You almost got me with that, I would say that you're just barely worthy of wearing a hitae-ate" chuckling he turned to Kakashi again "Let's finish this thing shall we?"

"I was just thinking that as well" he replied, closing his right eye. As one the two Jonin flew through multiple hand seals

"Suiton: Suiryudan no Jutsu (Water release: Water Dragon Jutsu)!" they shouted together, causing the water around them to surge forth creating two identical dragons that slammed into each other.

Zabuza was beside himself, 'How could he be copying my movements so quickly? He's like a damn chimp, its monkey-see-monkey-do with him!'

Zabuza immediately went through a different series of hand-signs only to see that not only was Kakashi keeping up with him, but he was outpacing him as well,

'What is this? It's not possible… Could he be-?'

"Reading the future?" Kakashi finished for him as he finished the jutsu, "Suiton: Daibakufu no Jutsu (Water Release: Giant Vortex Jutsu)!"

Zabuza was swept up in a giant blast of water, "No! Damn it, How the hell? Damn you Kakashi! Damn you and your blond brat to hell!" Zabuza was swept away by the water until he slammed into a tree, the pressure fracturing a number of his ribs.

As he tried to move he found his limbs pinned to the tree with kunai. "I can see the future Zabuza, and in your future I see death!"

Just as Kakashi was about to move in to finish Zabuza a pair of senbon struck Zabuza's neck, piercing all the way through the flesh. His eyes opened wide and he slumped over dead

"It seems you were right, there was death in his future." A young person in a hunter-nin mask jumped down between Kakashi and Zabuza,

"I owe you many thanks for allowing me to bring this one down; I've been after him for a long time."

Kakashi relaxed slightly, "It's no problem Hunter-san."

The hunter-nin lifted Zabuza onto his shoulder "I will see to the destruction of the body, you should see to your squad and principal"

With that the masked ninja departed via a shunshin. Kakashi lowered his hitae-ate over his sharingan and stared at the spot where Zabuza had been for a moment longer before looking to the shore to see Sakura bandaging Naruto's chest, after a moment of contemplation he cut the flow of chakra to his feet and sank beneath the water.

XxXxX

(On the shore with Naruto and Sakura)

"What were you thinking Naruto? That was really a stupid and dangerous thing to do, you could have been killed!"

"Hey if a plan's stupid but it works then it isn't stupid" Naruto huffed indignantly as Sakura bound his cut with some of the bandages that he always carried with him, Sasuke was standing near Tazuna keeping an eye on everything, he winced slightly whenever he moved.

In truth he was very lucky that the cut was as shallow as it was, if it wasn't for the fact that being underwater had slowed the slash from Zabuza, his chest would have been cleaved open, the blond boy shuddered at the thought

"Sakura's right Naruto that was a foolish thing to do" glancing over the duo were treated to the sight of a positively soaked scarecrow trudging through the water carrying Kogane Saru under his arm.

"Zabuza was an absolute monster, you're lucky that the only wound you received was that cut. I only have one other thing to say about your actions; thank you."

Naruto tilted his head and stared at the man owlishly. "Huh?"

"If you hadn't done what you did things could have turned out a lot worse, it was a decent plan too I had been wondering why you took that rebreather" Kakashi said gesturing to the looted device that had allowed Naruto to stay under long enough to enact his plan getting a smirk out of the boy. "Also here I brought your puppet back for you" Kakashi said dropping the monkey-like marionette in front of the boy

"Well now that Zabuza has been taken care let's get goi- ugh" Kakashi grunted in pain as he face-planted on the ground.

"Kakashi-sensei what's wrong?" Sakura shouted rushing over to the man

"I think I over-used my sharingan, I'm out of chakra" Naruto pulled his ruined shirt back on and sealed Kogane Saru away

"Hey old man do you think that you can carry Kakashi-sensei the rest of the way to your house?" He nodded,

"Not a problem, it's the least I can do for getting you all involved in this." he pulled Kakashi up onto his back and the group quickly made their way to Tazuna's house.

XxXxX

After arriving in Tazuna's house and placing Kakashi in a futon to recover, Sasuke fell out on the floor in exhaustion while Naruto sat against a wall

"You alright Sasuke? Zabuza break any of your ribs?" Naruto asked

"I'm good dobe… just need to get some rest and I'll be fine, what about you? How's that cut he gave you?"

Naruto shrugged and scratched at his bandages "Eh, it itches. How about you sensei, you doing ok?"

"Well I probably won't be able to move very well for about a week, but other than that I'm fine"

Growing restless at being in an unfamiliar house Naruto stood up and walked to the front door "I'll see you guys later, I'm heading out to train for a while" he paused with his hand on the doorknob and looked over to the stairwell to see a small boy standing there.

"All of you are going to die, you know that right?" he stated matter-of-factly

"Everybody dies kid it's all a matter of when"

"That's not what I meant. Gato's going to kill you and your friends" he spoke as if it was a certifiable fact, as if it was going to happen no matter what.

Naruto stared at the boy impassively for a moment before chuckling "He's welcome to try" and with that he walked out the door. The boy huffed and returned upstairs while the other looked on in silence

"I'm sorry about Inari" Tazuna's daughter Tsunami said walking in from the kitchen

"He's a good boy, but some… things happened after Gato took over and he's become more and more sullen, I don't really know what to do about it"

"It's fine ma'am, now if you'll excuse me I need to get some rest" Kakashi said closing his eyes only to reopen them a moment later

"I almost forgot could you give this to Naruto when he returns?" he asked holding out Naruto's missing hitae-ate.

Tsunami nodded and took it from the man before shooing everybody out of the room so Kakashi could sleep.

XxXxX

(With Naruto)

Standing in a forest clearing Naruto removed the scroll that carried his puppet from his let and put his hands into the cross seal.

"Taju Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu)!" he shouted creating thirty replicas of himself in a large cloud of smoke

"You know the drill spread out wait five minutes and then try to find me. Go!"

At his exclamation the clones darted into the trees, vanishing in the darkness. The original slowly counted to twenty before jumping into the branches and disappearing as well.

The game of cat and mouse was on and if one of Naruto's clones managed to find him before he found them, then they would attempt to maim him to teach him a lesson for being found.

This method of exercise was similar to the ways that Sasori had trained him, although his clones tended to be a bit more sadistic in their attacks than the red haired man had ever been.

Naruto smirked as he pulled a black cloak from his bag and threw it over his shoulders, later on he would bring Kogane Saru into this little game, that's when things would get really interesting. This was going to be a long and fun night.

**Finally done with this chapter. I have to say I'm really starting to hate my computer, it's crashed like five times in the past year and that's not even counting the times that something on it has broken and I had to mail it in to get it fixed, this chapter has been deleted entirely at least three times, hell the damn thing is down right now and I have no way to fix it. I'm starting to think that buying a new computer would be less expensive. I'm really lucky that I had a back-up this time. **

**Well enough of my problems, I hope that you enjoyed this chapter and hopefully I'll have the next one out faster. **

**I would also like to thank Kenchi618 for being such a kick-ass author; all of your stories are awesome man, keep up the good work. I have to say that if you've never read any of his works then get the hell off this page and look him up.**

**As always all reviews, question, concerns, and criticisms (constructive) are welcome. **

**I don't really have anything else to add. So I'll just say, beware the rabbit of caerbannog, he has big pointy teeth watch out for those. Till next time people, ja ne.**


	6. Ride the Purple Wave

**Damn it's been awhile since I've been on here. Don't really have an excuse for where I've been, so I'll just say that life's been a bitch and leave it at that.**

**Standard disclaimer: Blah blah blah I don't own Naruto yadda yadda yadda you all know how this goes, so let's just enjoy the ride**

**Chapter 6: Ride the Purple Wave**

Morning found Naruto leaning against Tazuna's house fast asleep, he was covered in rapidly healing cuts, bruises, and from the look of some of the new bandages he had been stabbed a few times as well. All that remained of his shirt was a few tattered shreds.

Sakura stood nearby wondering what the hell had happened to him during the night and contemplating whether or not to wake him up. The decision was ultimately taken away from her when Sasuke exited the house and walked over to the sleeping boy.

He stared at Naruto for a moment and then kicked him in the head, only for the boy to vanish in a cloud of smoke leaving a log in his place

"What the hell was that for teme?" Naruto asked as he came around the side of the house.

"Kakashi-sensei told me to wake you up"

"And you had to kick me to do that?"

"Seemed like the fastest way besides you had a kawarimi ready, who does that anyways?"

"Someone who's been attacked in their sleep a lot"

"You've been attacked in your sleep before?" Sakura queried as the three genin walked back inside

"Oh yeah, Sasori-sensei used to do it all the time to teach me to always sleep lightly, I had to learn how quick since he said that if I didn't he'd kill me and make a mannequin out of me... actually he used that threat against me for a lot of things"

"Wow he sounds like a great teacher" Sakura deadpanned as they stopped at Naruto's room so he could drop off his satchel and put on a new shirt.

"His methods may have been a little extreme at times, but now no one can sneak up on me while I'm sleeping"

"Ah there you all are" Kakashi said when they entered his room.

"I need to talk to about our encounter with Zabuza and that hunter-nin, I've been thinking it over and things just aren't adding up I believe that Zabuza is still alive"

A glint of excitement entered Naruto's eye at the prospect of fighting the ex-Kiri ninja's mysterious helper

"So what are we going to do about it?" he asked.

Kakashi stared at him for a moment before replying "We're going to train"

XxXxX

An hour later the three genin were standing in a forest in front of Kakashi who was supporting himself through the use of crutches

"Today you will be learning how to climb trees!" the masked man exclaimed obviously enjoying himself

"But we already know how to climb trees sensei" Sakura protested.

Kakashi gave the confused girl his eye smile before he turned and hobbled over to the nearest tree.

"Not like this you don't" He put one foot on the trunk and then the other and began to walk straight up the side of the tree only stopping once he had reached the underside of a thick branch well over half way up the large tree "See what I mean? All you have to do is gather chakra in the bottom of your feet and climb up a tree"

Sakura however was still confused "Wait, I don't get it how is learning how to climb a tree going to make us stronger?"

"Well the main purpose of this exercise is to teach you how to properly control your chakra as well as to build your stamina, if you can master this then you should be able to master any jutsu… in theory anyways"

"Hey Kakashi-sensei I already know how to do that." Naruto called out

"Really, show me then" At his sensei's prompting Naruto jumped onto and stood on the side of a nearby tree walking up the tree until he was equal to Kakashi

"Dam- I mean that's very good Naruto, I guess I'll have to come up with something else for you to do"

XxXxX

(A little while later, back at Tazuna's house)

After making sure that his students had at least the basic understating of their exercise and watching Sakura complete it with ease to no one's surprise, Kakashi left Sasuke to continue the training and took Sakura and Naruto back to Tazuna's.

"So your sensei taught you water walking as well?"

"Yeah I needed it to have better control for my chakra threads; of course after I got good at it Sasori made me do it as I carried heavy loads while throwing kunai and shuriken at me, he called it training I just called it him being a sadistic prick"

"Well then since you're so accomplished at it, I have the perfect thing for you to do" Kakashi said giving the boy a smile

"You're going to train Sakura for me!"

Naruto facefaulted but quickly picked himself up "What?"

"Yep since I'm still worn out from that encounter with Zabuza, I'll need to get all the rest I can, so I leave Sakura to you" Naruto facepalmed and grumbled under his breath about lazy teachers as Kakashi hobbled away chuckling.

Sighing he turned to his teammate "Let's get started shall we?"

(Several hours later)

Sasuke found an exhausted Sakura lying on the dock next to a pile of Naruto's gear "What are you doing?"

"I'm taking a break from water walking, how's the tree climbing going, did you get it down?"

"…Almost, where's Naruto?"

"I'm not sure he said something about going for a swim but I wasn't really paying attention"

The sound of splashing drew Sasuke's attention to the water. He looked over the edge of the dock just in time for a rather large fish to fly out and collide into his chest. The unexpected weight knocked him to his back where he spent the next few second wondering what the hell had just happened as a fish tail slapped his face.

"Hey nice catch Sasuke!"

The sound of Naruto's appreciative voice brought the boy out of his momentary stupor, shoving the fish off he stood up and glared at the blond boy who had climbed back on to the dock

"Naruto what the hell were you doing!?"

"Fishing, good size isn't it?"

"You just hit Sasuke-kun with it dumbass"

"What are you talking about I clearly threw it to him to catch, and he caught it"

Sasuke remained silent but kept his glare on Naruto while trying to clean some of the fish slime off of his shirt.

Noticing this Naruto scratched his head sheepishly. "Heh sorry about that Sasuke, here let me help" putting his hand on the glaring boy's shoulder Naruto gave him a hard shove off the dock, the look of shock on Sasuke's face was absolutely priceless.

"Sasuke-kun!" Sakura screamed as the boy went under, as soon as he surfaced the pinkette rounded on Naruto who was still standing in the same place, a shit-eating grin on his face that didn't drop even when Sakura's fist connected with his nose.

At the edge of the forest Naruto paused as the memory of Sakura dispelling his clone reached him "What the hell, did I just get the memory of my clone... I'll need to test this more later" pushing the thoughts of his new discovery to the back of his head, Naruto continued deeper onto the woods heading to a good campground site he had found the night before, his teammates were more than likely going to be rather pissed off at him for a while; laying low for a time seemed like the best idea.

(Later that night)

In the middle of the forest Naruto sat next to a crackling fire keeping an eye on his fish and performing some maintenance on his puppet. He was so caught up in this that he was almost taken by surprise when a voice spoke up behind him, almost.

"You really shouldn't be so jumpy Naruto" Kakashi commented looking at the shuriken and kunai that now decorated the space on a tree next to his head

"Well maybe you shouldn't be creeping around and sneaking up on people Kakashi-sensei"

The masked-man sighed and took a seat "You really don't trust anybody do you?" he asked glancing up into the canopy.

"I trust myself; I don't see the need to trust anyone else"

"You should at least try trusting your teammates; you're going to be stuck with us for a while"

Naruto didn't respond and the camp lapsed in to silence save for the sounds of the fire. Eventually Kakashi stood with a grunt and turned to leave.

"Want some fish?"

"No thanks I already ate, are you coming back to Tazuna's tonight?"

"Hmm, doubtful"

With nothing more to say Kakashi hobbled off into the night. As the man vanished from sight "Naruto" disappeared in a puff of smoke as the real Naruto dropped to the ground and pulled the fish from the fire. "Trust them huh? We'll see"

XxXxX

The next few days passed in a similar fashion. In the morning Naruto would be found sleeping outside Tazuna's house, Sasuke would leave to train, Sakura would travel with the bridge builder to the construction site, Kakashi, well Kakashi would sleep and occasionally train, and Naruto acted like a ghost, flittering around the house, the bridge, and occasionally the town. Then at the end of the day Naruto would once again vanish without a trace

(Night of the 5th day)

Tsunami looked out from the kitchen as she heard the door open and saw Naruto walk in. "Hello Naruto-kun, are you going to eat with us tonight?"

"Yeah I couldn't catch a fish this time"

"Well come on in there's always a spot open for you"

"Thanks Tsunami-san"

"Oh Naruto-kun before I forget your sensei asked me to give this to you the next time I saw you" Naruto blinked in surprise as Tsunami held his hitae-ate out to him. He stared at the object before taking it and tying it in place on his forehead "Thanks"

As he sat at the table and helped himself to some food Naruto could feel a pair of eyes on him looking over he saw Inari glaring at him "What do you want?"

"I don't get you people, why are you even bothering to train? As soon as you go against Gato he'll just have you killed" silence fell upon the table

"I remember you saying something similar to that when we first got here, and for some reason I just can't find it in me to actually care" At that Inari's voice rose to a shout "You should care, the weak will always die when they fight against the strong"

"Don't worry kid we're nothing like you" Naruto said taking a sip from his cup.

By now tears were streaming down Inari's face "I'd hate to be anything like you ninja, you know nothing about this land and yet you keep butting in. What the hell do you know about me, you've never been through the things I've been through; you've no idea how hard life can be!"

The boy flinched as Naruto's cup shattered in his grasp "Shut your damn mouth you miserable brat." Naruto shouted grabbing the front of Inari's shirt and lifting him into the air "You think that I don't how hard life can be!? Is that all you can do? Claim that we're going to die and cry about your miserable little life? What was it you said, the weak will always die when they go against the strong? Well there's something that you should know; crying is a worthless act, and is nothing more than a sign of weakness."

Inari shrank back in Naruto's grip from the venom in his voice "You say you've had a hard life; well so what? So have most of the people in this room but you don't see them moaning and bitching about it in their own little pity parties do you?"

"Naruto that was way too harsh, he's just a child" Sakura shouted as Inari freed himself from Naruto's grasp and ran from the room.

"He needed to hear it, the worlds a harsh place the sooner he figures that out and learns to move on the better off he'll be" Pushing his chair back Naruto stood and strode from the house heading once more into the woods

The dining room was quite for a while "What kind of life has Naruto-kun been through for him to say things like that" Tsunami finally asked to no one in particular, Kakashi just sighed.

XxXxX

Kakashi found Inari sitting outside the house staring out at the ocean "Mind if I join you?" he asked.

Taking a seat next to the boy they sat in silence for a time until Kakashi decided to speak "I know that what Naruto said was a bit severe, but I believe that he meant well, he just hates to see people not being able to move on over things, probably because it reminds him of the lowest point in his life. In his own way he's concerned about you but the only way he knows how to show it is to use force to make you see that lingering over something you can't change; never helps. It's the only way he knows because it's the way that he was taught"

"What happened to him?"

"Hmm?"

"Naruto, what happened to him that made him that way?"

"Well I suppose, to start he never knew either of his parents and he didn't have many, if any, friends growing up; but the main thing that changed him was that a few years back Naruto was attacked by some ninja from our own village and the wounds that they inflicted on him were so great that he was almost permanently crippled, he uses those bandages to cover the evidence of the injuries but they'll be with him for the rest of his life, but he doesn't let that stop him or get him down. As long as he's got a pair of legs under him he'll keep moving forward and he won't stop until he finally achieves his goal"

Inari stared wide-eyed at Kakashi as he finished talking unable to come up with anything to say.

(With Naruto)

Naruto stalked into his camp and began pacing around the fire pit for a few minutes before siting and closing his eyes attempting to meditate and calm himself.

He didn't know how long he had been sitting when he became aware of the sound of dripping water, opening his eyes Naruto found himself sitting in a flooded tunnel.

Standing he started to walk forward instinctively. Eventually the tunnel emptied into large room that was taken up by huge bars that stretched from the floor to the ceiling behind which Naruto could make out a large shape wreathed in shadows.

"So you're the Kyuubi no Yoko huh?"

The giant fox cracked an eye and stared at Naruto letting out a low growl, clearly not thrilled to have him as a guest

"And what else could I possibly be, what do you want boy?"

Naruto couldn't help but smirk "I want to make a deal"

In the trees Kakashi watched as Naruto meditated, he had come out to check on the boy after talking with Inari, but could see no reason to disturb him.

Turning to leave the masked man froze when an oppressive aura, one that he hadn't felt in over a decade, settled over the area, slowly turning back around Kakashi watched as Naruto opened his eyes.

Even from his distance it was easy to see that one of the boy's eyes was glowing crimson. Before Kakashi could do anything Naruto burst from his sitting position and dashed deeper into the woods. Was this a good turn of events or not? The jounin couldn't decide.

Naruto tore through the trees enjoying the speed and power that the Kyuubi's chakra granted him.

It had taken a while to work out a deal with the giant angry fox, but with a great deal of haggling the Kyuubi had given the boy access to a small amount of his chakra. In return the Kyuubi was given permission to manipulate Naruto's mindscape to his pleasing as well as a few other things.

Without pausing to think Naruto lashed out with his left hand and punched through a small tree grinning manically as it splintered apart and toppled over.

Summoning forth even more chakra Naruto made the cross seal "Taju Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu)" he shouted creating 150 clones in one go. Without any provocation multiple fights began breaking out in the sea of blonds.

Laughing like a lunatic the original blond joined in, there would be no drawn out stealth fight tonight, Naruto had too much energy to burn for that, this was going to be a no holds barred free-for-all that wasn't going to stop until the sun came up.

(The next morning)

Haku hummed softly to herself as she walked through the early morning forest looking for a clearing that held the herb she sought. Her eye's widened in surprise when she noticed a rather large and wicked shuriken impaled in a tree in front of her. Looking farther ahead Haku noticed other ninja tools, disturbed ground, and smashed trees; obvious signs of a large battle that had taken place here.

Cautiously walking into the clearing her gaze fell upon a blond boy sitting against a tree fast asleep. As Haku drew closer she recognized him as one of the Konoha ninja, kneeling down she debated whether or not to kill him where he lay.

Eventually deciding against it she set a hand on his shoulder and immediately found herself slammed into another tree and a kunai pressed against her throat.

"What were you doing?" Naruto asked planting his free hand against her chest to keep her pinned down.

"It looked like a large fight took place here and I saw you so I was seeing if you were ok" The girl replied as calmly as she could though on the inside she was deeply regretting not bringing any weapons with her.

Naruto continued to glare at her before he suddenly stood and slipped the blade into his pocket

"Sorry about that I'm not really used to this place so I'm a bit more on edge than usual" he said extending his hand he helped Haku to her feet "My name's Naruto"

"…I'm Haku, tell me Naruto-kun are you a ninja?"

"Yeah I am how did you know" he asked a guileful smirk on his face

"Lucky guess" she replied rubbing her neck gingerly.

A few minutes later Naruto was combing through the clearing looking for any herbs that hadn't been trodden upon.

"Out of curiosity, what's a girl like you doing in the middle of the forest looking for herbs so early in the morning for?"

"A friend of mine got hurt recently and these herbs help with healing. What about you why were you sleeping in the woods and what happened here anyways?"

He paused and thought back to the several brawls that had taken place through the course of the night "Uh…Ninja training? Yeah let's go with that."

"Oh, why were you training?"

"Why does anyone train? Usually to become stronger"

"Why do you want that, you look plenty strong to me?"

"I promised myself that I would become the greatest ninja ever and I'm not going to stop until I reach my goal."

"I see, that sound like a noble goal, but it's too bad that you're doing it only for yourself"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well I believe that a person only becomes truly strong when they are fighting for the sake of others"

Having collected all she could from the area Haku stood and bowed to the blond boy "It was a pleasure meeting Naruto-kun I hope you'll think on what I said, oh and by the way you should know I'm a boy"

Naruto tilted his head and raised an eyebrow "Clever but I know you're not"

"And how would you know that?"

"I had my hand on your chest remember? You've got them wrapped up pretty well but I could still tell" he explained with a grin.

Try as she might Haku couldn't help blushing slightly. Quickly turning away the girl left with a huff.

She had been feeling on edge while near Naruto but couldn't explain why other than when she had woken him, he had shown no aggression towards her and had acted rather friendly in their conversation.

It wasn't until a few moments of thinking on it that Haku came to a realization, the entire time that they had been talking Naruto had not once shown his back to her and the kunai he'd held to her throat had been placed into his pocket but he had never taken his hand back out. He had spent the entire time picking herbs to help her one handed.

Had he known who she was the entire time? Or was he just being paranoid, Naruto had told her that he wasn't used to the area and was jumpy.

Hell maybe she was the one being paranoid, if he had known who she was he would have done something about it, right?

As caught up in her thoughts as she was Haku failed to notice the two pairs of eyes in the trees watching her leave

"So what do you think?" Naruto asked the clone that had been hiding in the canopy keeping an eye on the meeting "She could be the hunter-nin, the hair color and body look similar, not too sure on the voice though"

"Of course it could always be a coincidence" The two blonds shared a look and burst out laughing

"Want me to follow her boss; she could lead us right to Zabuza"

"Nah no need, if it is her we'll run into each other again sooner or later, besides if Zabuza has recovered, trying to take him on alone would just lead to my death" with a nod the clone dispelled and Naruto dropped to the ground to collect his discarded tools.

(The next day)

Naruto leapt through the trees following a trail of slash marks that he had noticed after finding the mutilated corpse of a wild pig, an uneasy feeling in his gut as they seemed to be heading straight for Tazuna's house drawing on the Kyuubi's chakra his eye turned crimson as he picked up the pace through the forest.

Gato's two katana wielding bodyguards Zori and Waraji stared in disbelief at the sight of Inari standing behind them tears streaming down his face "Let my mom go you bastards!" he shouted

"Heh the balls on this runt, eh Zori?" Waraji chuckled "if you want her back so badly brat then come and get her"

To the surprise of both men Inari charged at them doing his best impression of a war cry.

Laughing at his stupidity the thugs drew their blades and sliced through his body, only to freeze in shock as the boy's sliced up body was replaced with a cut apart log.

"You know it's one thing to be brave kid, but rushing in foolishly like that is only going to get you killed" Naruto said standing in between the swordsmen as a pair of his clones untied Tsunami.

The two thugs tried to move but found that despite the amount of effort they used, their bodies were frozen stiff. Furthermore there also seemed to be thick orange strings leading from their bodies to Naruto's fingers

"You two might want to look away for this part Soen: Hitomi Goku (Puppet Technique: Skillful Achievement with a Human Body)"

With a flourish of his hand Zori and his partner turned and thrust their swords into each other's throats. Ignoring the gurgling noises coming the two of them Naruto cut his chakra strings and let the dying men crumple to the ground to continue bleeding out as the Kyuubi's chakra faded away.

"Are the two of you okay?"

"We're fine Naruto-kun thank you" Tsunami replied as she held on to her son.

Naruto looked at Inari who was facing away from him trying to hide that he was still sobbing gently.

Naruto sighed and walked over and set his real hand on the boy's head ruffling his hair "You did good kid, keep it up"

His brief words of encouragement dealt with Naruto sealed the dead bodies into a scroll and leapt into the tree's heading for the bridge.

XxXxX

(On the bridge)

Sasuke stood alone in a dome of ice mirrors, senbon sticking out his body in various places.

Haku, once more in the guise of Zabuza's hunter ninja, stepped out of one of the mirrors in front of the boy seemingly taking in his haggard appearance

"Please give up Uchiha-san I do not wish to kill you but I will if you insist on continuing this fight"

Sasuke scoffed at the request "like hell I will, I'm not done yet!"

"Very well then" Haku said drawing more senbon to finish him off.

Before she could attack Haku had to leap out of the way as four shuriken flew at her. Looking around for the source of the attack she was very surprised to find Naruto standing next to an equally surprised Sasuke inside the dome

"What the hell are you doing you dumbass, you should have stayed outside to attack him!"

Naruto just smiled and set his hand on the Uchiha's shoulder.

"That's a great idea Sasuke… have fun with that" before he could say another word Naruto hit his teammate with a backhand to the face that sent him flying through an opening between the mirrors at an incredible speed "And that's why I keep my pimp hand strong, damn I'm good"

"That was an interesting way to remove your friend from harm's way ninja-san"

" Ah come on Haku-chan why are you acting like you don't know me, that's not very nice you know" Naruto said condescendingly, smirking as he saw the girl tense "Did those herbs we gathered help?"

"… Yes they did, did you know the whole time?"

Naruto shrugged "I had my suspicions; you just confirmed them for me"

"I see so what now?"

"Well I don't suppose you'll just surrender to me?"

"I am sorry Naruto-san, but that is something that I can't do"

"Didn't think so, figured it was worth a shot though"

Drawing more senbon, Haku steeled her resolve "I will try to end this quickly Naruto-san"

At the threat Naruto started to laugh confusing the girl "Nothing you can do can hurt me Haku, feel free to try though" Naruto made the first move, hurling a kunai at Haku but she easily avoided it by stepping back into a mirror as the knife bounced harmlessly off the surface.

He watched as she began to jump from mirror to mirror not even flinching as senbon pierced his skin. He just stood still, the smile never leaving his face

'What's going on, even if he has a high pain tolerance he should be feeling something, this doesn't make any sense' Haku wouldn't be able to keep the jutsu active much longer it was simply to draining on her chakra 'I have to finish this now!'

Raising her chosen weapon the girl flew from a mirror behind Naruto intending to put him down once and for all.

And then Naruto moved. Twirling to face her, his arms rose up and shot at Haku extending further than those of any normal human.

His hands grabbed hold of her kimono and using her momentum swung Haku harshly slamming the girl into another mirror, cracking it and pushing the air from her lungs.

As Haku struggled to breathe and figure out what the hell had just happened to her she noticed something odd, outside of her dome Sasuke was leaning against the side of the bridge using it to support his weight, and standing next to him was another Naruto.

Haku glanced between the two utterly confused until the Naruto in the dome with her turned green and burst apart in a swirl of leaves leaving behind Naruto's puppet, Kogane Saru.

(Several Minutes Earlier)

Sasuke hit the ground with a grunt and sat up quickly "You moron wh-mph"

"Be quiet Sasuke" Naruto whispered taking his hand away from the boy's mouth "What the hell is going on dobe, who's that in the dome?"

"That's my puppet obviously, now look I saw what happened to you in there and I figured yanking you out would be the best option, that's why I had Kogane Saru put a chakra thread on you"

"Wait if you had a thread on me you could have pulled me out easily, why did you hit me then?"

"Shit's and giggles mostly"

"… You're an asshole"

"You were tracking her movement's in there right?" Naruto asked ignoring the insult

"Yeah I was starting to, why?"

"Good, keep watching and let me know if she attacks my puppet directly"

Sasuke turned his gaze back to the dome and watched as Haku darted between mirrors launching ineffective attacks on the puppet; until finally. "Dobe from behind now!"

Reacting quickly to the instructions Naruto turned Kogane Saru around and launched its arms, catching Haku and slamming her into another mirror.

Then Haku noticed them so Naruto snapped his fingers and revealed Kogane Saru for what it truly was.

"Like I said, you wouldn't be able to hurt me Haku" The girl stood with a groan holding her side, it felt like he might have cracked some of her ribs.

"Zabuza-sama believes in me, I cannot fail him here" She pulled more senbon and dashed towards Naruto faster than he could react.

Before Haku's attack could connect Sasuke, appeared between them and knocked the girl away.

"Hey Naruto, you can beat her right?"

"Yeah of course"

"Good I'll leave this to you then" Sasuke collapsed to his knees a pair of senbon sticking from his neck

"Sasuke, damn it why did you get in the way!?"

"How should I know, I saw her attacking and my body just moved on its own" He started to fall backwards but Naruto caught him and set him down gently.

Glancing at his face Naruto's eyes widened at the appearance of Sasuke's, they had turned red with a single tomoe spinning around the pupil

"You better not screw this up dobe" Sasuke closed his eyes and didn't open them again

'Why, why do they keep doing this' He couldn't understand it why did people keep protecting him at the risk of their own life? First Iruka, now Sasuke, it didn't make any sense to him.

"He died a good death, protecting a friend" Haku's breath caught in her throat as an oppressive feeling flooded the area.

"For that, I'm going to kill you" Fear gripped the girl as Naruto turned his singular red eye on her.

Haku blinked and he was in front of her burying his fist into her chest with enough force to break her cracked ribs and lift her off the ground. Not letting up Naruto grabbed her Kimono and hurled Haku into the bridge wall.

The girl struggled to breathe as she looked at Naruto and shuddered with fear at his new appearance, the whisker marks on his face had become darker and bolder, his canines were more pronounced, and his finger nails had become claws, but it was his unwavering gaze with the glowing red eye that scared her the most.

Haku shakily rose only to find that Naruto was once more standing in front of her. He swung at her with his false arm but she dodged to the side and his fist hit the concrete instead, causing his arm to shatter into splinters from the force behind it.

Not pausing Naruto grabbed the blade that had been hidden within from the air and threw it at Haku, hitting her in the shoulder.

He then quickly followed up with a kick to the head that sent her flying down the bridge. "Haku!" the ice girl looked up to see Zabuza immobilized by ninja hounds with Kakashi standing before him "Zabuza-sama"

"Get out of here Haku, I've lost"

"I can't leave you"

"Go now damn it! You have to live!"

Getting her feet under her and gathering the last dredges of her strength Haku charged at Kakashi.

She was so focused on the man that she didn't notice Naruto until he slashed her mask with his claws, cutting through it and hitting her face. The girl crashed to the ground with a scream

"HAKU!" Zabuza struggled against his living restraints but could not break free "Finish it Kakashi" He said, finally giving up. The silver haired scarecrow said nothing as he made a few hand seal and a ball of lightning appeared in his giving off a sound reminiscent of chirping birds

"No, Zabuza-sama" Naruto watched as Haku weakly tried to crawl to Zabuza

"You really care for him that much?" He asked, not understanding the girls actions "Fine, you really want to save him so much, then I'll help you"

Picking her up by the back of her kimono Naruto spun and threw her towards the ex-Kiri nin.

Kakashi, who had been just about to shove his hand through Zabuza's chest, was taken by complete surprise when the flying girl collided with his arm throwing his aim off causing him to slice through the man's left arm.

Zabuza howled in pain as the severed limb hit the ground. Laughter echoed across the bridge.

"That's quite the sorry state you're in Zabuza, some demon you turned out to be" Gato strode through the fog with a mob of thugs at his back, coming to a stop in front of Haku's unconscious form

"Gato, what the hell are you doing here with all those men?"

"Well you see, it's like this, I never planned on paying you, as soon as you killed that troublesome bastard Tazuna I was going to have you killed, and now that you and that Konoha ninja have worn each other out it's going to be even easier"

The little man paused in his gloating and looked down at the girl lying at his feet "You know this little bitch broke my arm earlier I think that it's high time I paid her back, with some interest of course"

Reaching down to crush Haku's throat his chuckling turned into screaming when a shuriken sliced his fingers off.

"Don't touch her"

Cradling his injured hand to chest Gato turned and fled from the red-eyed boy that had appeared before him, screaming for his hired muscle to kill everyone, but the felling that Naruto would brutally murder the first one to take a step forward held them in place.

Well that and the fact that Zabuza had been freed and was walking towards them letting off his own killing intent.

He knelt by Haku and checked her face "You blinded her"

Naruto just shrugged "She'll live"

"Thank you for not killing her, this is probably for the best she is far too kind for this life" He stood up and hefted his oversized blade one-handed "I think I have enough strength for one last move, but you guys are going to have to mop whatever's left"

"You should know that a part of me wanted to have a fight against you as well" It was a small part but it was still there

"Ha! Well when you get to hell you'll have to look me up" With nothing more to say Zabuza charged through the crowd heading straight for Gato, not slowing or faltering despite the injuries inflicted upon him by the thugs he passed by.

Naruto watched as Zabuza lifted Kubikiribouchou and cleaved the short ego-maniac in two, amazed at the strength of the man.

The thugs were not as thrilled with the death of their source of payment and stabbed Zabuza a few more times to ensure that he was truly dead before they began to voice plans to raid the village to cover their expenses.

Naruto sighed and pulled a scroll from his bag, unsealing from it the bodies of Zori and Waraji. Connecting his chakra threads to the pair he lifted them into the air.

Tapping into even more of the Kyuubi's chakra he turned his mismatched eyes to the crowd, speaking in a dark gravely tone "Leave now or I'll make your corpses dance for my amusement"

The sight of two dead bodies floating in the air freaked the thugs out, but they didn't move.

It wasn't until Naruto sent his temporary puppets swooping at the men cutting several down that they finally broke ranks and fled, trampling over each other to get back on the boat they had arrived on while some took the faster route and simply jumped from the bridge into the water below, swimming for dear life.

Only after the last of the thugs had left the bridge did Naruto release his makeshift puppets and walk over to Kakashi taking a seat next to him.

"Good job Naruto I didn't have enough chakra left to deal with them"

The blond boy tousled his hair and pointed down the bridge "I sent Sakura and Tazuna down that way to where Sasuke is you should take care of him, I'm going to take of care Haku" Standing back up and walking over to the girls prone form he gently lifted her from the ground

"Are you sure that it's a good idea to leave her alive?"

"…No" and in a swirl of leaves he was gone.

"That boy, what am I supposed to do with him Minato-sensei?"

(Two Weeks Later)

As it turned out Haku hadn't killed Sasuke, instead she had placed him in a near death state much like she done for Zabuza.

Speaking of the girl, she was currently sitting in front of Zabuza's grave a bandage covering her eyes, Naruto was sitting in a nearby tree in case she needed help

"You'll be leaving soon now that the bridge is finished won't you?"

"Yeah we're heading back to Konoha in the morning… what are you going to do?"

"Tazuna-san has offered to let me stay at his home for as long as I need so I will do that for now, I'm not sure about later"

Naruto dropped to the ground behind her "C'mon it's getting dark lets head back to the house"

"Naruto wait, I want you to have something" Standing Haku felt out and grasped the hilt of Kubikiribouchou and pulled it from the ground.

"I think that Zabuza-sama would want you to have it and this is better than letting it rust away in the ground"

"Uh… thank you Haku" Naruto said not really sure what he would do with the huge weapon.

Taking the massive blade from the blind girl and struggling not to drop it he sealed it away into a scroll from his satchel and then took her hand leading her back to the house. The next morning the entire village met at the bridge to send the ninja's off and after much fanfare they set off for Konoha.

XxXxX

Walking through the gates Naruto couldn't help but notice the lack of a familiar pair of faces.

'Huh I guess they're on an actual mission for once' and yet he couldn't shake the feeling that someone was watching him 'Sasori senses tingling! Evade now!'

He quickly activated one of his custom smoke bombs enveloping himself and his team in thick black smoke

"Oh no you don't brat!" Kotetsu burst from his hiding place and lunged into the cloud emerging from the other side with Naruto in his grasp

"I've been waiting for you to get back, do you have any idea what you little present did to me?" he shouted at the boy's face "It turned my skin purple for a week!"

"Only a week, I figured it would've lasted at least twice as long as that?" The boy mused not at all phased by the murderous look on Kotetsu's face as he was dangled in the air "Oh and you should know, I'm not Naruto, the boss made good on his escape already"

The spiky headed chunin was rather shocked when Naruto vanished in a puff of smoke but he was still out for blood.

"Where'd he go?" He growled leveling his gaze on Sasuke, the boy pointed to a nearby tree in response.

Looking over at it Kotetsu saw Naruto leap from the foliage and dash across a rooftop while giving the last Uchiha the bird "You suck teme!"

The chunin immediately took off after the fleeing genin damn near foaming at the mouth.

The rest of team 7 watched as Kotetsu vanished from view and in a puff of smoke "Sasuke" changed into Naruto thoroughly confusing Sakura

"What the hell Naruto? Where's Sasuke?-kun?"

"Oh I had some clones tie him up and drag him into that alley over there"

Sakura dashed over and quickly freed her teammate and turned around to berate the other only to find that both he and Kakashi were gone.

XxXxX

(Naruto's apartment)

Flopping down on his couch Naruto let out a long sigh, he was finally home, and he could truly relax. That mission had been rougher than he'd expected and it had brought a slightly painful point to light.

Kogane Saru simply wouldn't be enough anymore. Standing back up he walked over to his hallway closet and opened it to reveal dozens of scrolls sitting on the shelves inside. He glanced over them before pulling a few out.

"Time to make some changes" he muttered to himself

(A Week Later)

Naruto was walking through the streets reading over the piece of paper that Kakashi had given them all that morning. "Chunin Exam huh? Well why not, it's not like I've got anything else going on"

As he continued on his way he could feel the eyes of someone on him. His free hand drifted down to his weapon pouch and at the slight sound of scuffling behind him he spun around only to stop and sweatdrop at the sight of a square rock with eye holes.

"Seriously Konohamaru you're still using that thing?" When no movement came from the box Naruto kicked it over only to find that it was empty "The hell?"

His eyes went wide when he heard a young voice shout "Now!" Three cylinders hit the ground around him and flooded the area in smoke as three small blurs darted into the cloud.

As the smoke cleared it revealed Konohamaru and two other children, a boy and a girl, each holding a rope that was wrapped around a log "A log, where did a log come from?"

"The log comes from within, if you are in danger you must simply call for it and you shall be saved" Naruto dropped from the wall he was standing on landing next to Konohamaru "Did you really think that it would be that easy kid, so who are you're friends?"

"Oh that's Moegi, and that's Udon" He said pointing at the girl and boy respectively.

"They're in my class and after I told them about you they wanted to help me capture you"

"Well it was a good attempt, especially with the empty box, but you might want to be quieter next time" As the boy wrote down the advice in a small note book Naruto turned and walked off "Later you guys"

"Hey wait up Bo-wagh" Konohamaru's words quickly became a scream as a wire wrapped around his leg and hauled him to the air.

"Don't forget to watch your surroundings"

"Damn it Boss let me down!"

"Figure out how to do it yourself, that's the way I was taught" Naruto kept going and walked around a corner ignoring the angry shouts and curses that followed him.

A few minutes later he heard running footsteps coming up behind him. Jumping into the air he did a backflip over Konohamaru, pushing against the back of the boy's head Naruto sent him into a rolling tumble that was suddenly stopped when the boy slammed into the legs of a black clad ninja who had just turned around the corner.

With purple makeup on his face, a bandage wrapped object, that had what appeared to be hair sticking out the top of it, on his back, and a black hood with cat-like ears and a forehead protector with an hourglass engraved on it on his head the ninja made for an odd sight.

The kunoichi behind him however, made for a much prettier sight. She had her sandy blonde hair in four ponytails, and wore a single lavender shoulder-cut battle dress with a red sash and mesh under her clothes that went down to her left thigh as well as a separate mesh legging around the lower part of her right leg. On her back she was carrying a large black rectangular object that was almost as long as she was.

"Ow that hurt you little shit, watch were you're going" The black-clad ninja barked, grabbing Konohamaru by his shirt and lifting him into the air.

"Sorry about that I didn't mean to throw him into you, can you let go of him now?"

"Nah I think not, I think that I'll beat his face in first to teach him a lesson"

Naruto took one of the scrolls off his belt and held it at his side "That wouldn't be a good idea, let him go"

The boy looked at him for a moment before tossing Konohamaru to the side and pulling the bandaged object from his back. "Yeah you're right, you look like you'd be a lot more fun to fight"

The girl with him looked at the boy in disbelief.

"You're going to use Karasu here, don't be an idiot Kankuro what if _he_ finds out?" The girl asked putting emphasis on the word he.

"Well he's not here so he's not going to find out"

Tensions rose as the two ninja's faced off

"Kankuro stop"

The monotone voice made Kankuro's eyes widen in fear and he looked over to a nearby tree.

Following his gaze Naruto saw a small red haired boy dressed in a black bodysuit with short sleeves, a white cloth diagonally over his left shoulder and a large leather strap over his right, both of which were connected to a large sand gourd on his back, standing on the underside of a branch. There were black rings around his sea foam green eyes and he had the kanji for love tattooed on the left side his forehead.

In a wave of sand he vanished and reappeared in front of Naruto. "I apologize for the actions of my teammates"

"Gaara what are you talking about he-"

"Shut up Kankuro"

"but-"

"Do you want to die?" Kankuro shook his head and quickly took a step back.

Naruto quirked an eyebrow at the exchange but shrugged it off and smiled. "Don't worry about it any, no harm was done. I'm Uzumaki Naruto nice to meet you" he said extending his hand.

Gaara stared at the hand for a moment but didn't return the gesture "I'm Sabaku no Gaara, that's Kankuro and Temari"

"A pleasure, you're from Suna right, here for the chunin exams?"

"That's correct"

"Cool, I look forward to seeing all of you there; it was nice meeting you Gaara-san and the two of you as well" Nodding Gaara turned and walked off followed by his teammates

"What are you doing Boss, why didn't you do something about that guy?"

"Because of the way he smelled"

"What are you talking about?"

"That gourd he was carrying? It reeked with the stench of blood"

"B-blood are you serious?" Konohamaru gulped, glancing nervously at the departing forms of the Suna ninja

"Yep so if you ever encounter him by yourself, run like hell, because if you piss him off he'll probably kill you without a second thought"

"What about you Boss, are you going to run if you see him again?"

Naruto scoffed at that "Screw that I'm awesome, besides I kind of want to take Kankuro on, I've never truly fought another puppeteer."

(The Next Day)

Naruto stood next to Kakashi outside room 310 as Sasuke trudged down the hallway with Sakura following close behind. There were a number of bruises forming on his face "Did you have fun fighting against Lee, Sasuke?"

"Shut up dobe"

_(Flashback)_

_Team 7 had walked through the doors of the academy and up a set of stairs in time to see a boy in a green jumpsuit and a bowl cut get knocked back by a pair of ninja who were blocking the doorway of room 310, one of which glared at Naruto the moment he saw him. _

"_Weaklings, if you can't ever get by us what hope do you have of finishing this exam?" _

"_This Exam is brutal, we've failed it multiple ourselves, trust us we're doing you a favor by keeping you from going through it." _

_Sasuke just smirked and walked up to them "Well that's nice and all, but you will let us pass through, and you might as well drop the genjutsu while you're at it" _

"_Heh, so someone finally noticed" The sign above the door warped and shifted changing from 301 to 201 as the illusion faded. _

"_You're pretty good, but all you did was see through it" The spiky haired ninja attacked, throwing a high kick at Sasuke who immediately countered with a kick of his own. _

_Before the kicks could connect with each other the boy who had been knocked down earlier placed himself between them in a green blur, easily stopping both of their attacks. _

_Sasuke stared at him not believing that, that had just happened 'He was getting knocked so easily earlier, but he stopped our kicks like they were nothing, who is this guy?'_

_Naruto smirked at the display "That was pretty impressive Lee, makes me wonder though, why you didn't do that earlier" _

"_Yosh Naruto-kun it has been too long, I am glad to see that you are taking part in this exam as well" _

"_You two know each other?" _

"_Oh yeah, guys this is Rock Lee, Lee these are my teammates Uchiha Sasuke, and Haruno Sakura" _

_Lee stared at the pinkette until she felt thoroughly creeped out "Haruno Sakura please go out with me, I swear that I'll protect you with my life" _

_And of course as expected, she shot him down immediately "No way, not happening" _

_As Lee sulked at being rejected Team 7 continued onward to the test room until Lee's voice called out to them._

"_Please wait a moment Uchiha-san" _

"_What do you want?" _

"_I wish to challenge you to a fight" _

"_Why?" _

"_I would like to see how I stand against someone called a genius and I have heard that you have been called such Uchiha-san" _

"_Hn very well I accept, and I'll put you down in five minutes" _

_"Well I'm going to go on ahead, do me a favor and don't kick his ass too badly Lee, we're going to need him for the rest of the exams"_

_"I am sorry Naruto-kun but I can make no such promises" _

_Naruto shrugged and continued on his way "Oh well I tried" He walked up the stairs and was greeted with the sight of Kakashi standing in the hallway outside of the exam room reading his little orange book _

_"Hello Naruto-kun, are you here by yourself?" _

_"No Sasuke's back that way getting his ass kicked and Sakura's watching" _

_"Ah ok" and with that Kakashi went back to reading_

_(Flashback End)_

"So how badly did he beat you down?"

"He didn't, the fight got interrupted"

"Interrupted, by who... oh it was Gai-sensei wasn't?"

Sasuke shuddered but didn't say anything.

"Oh Kami you saw them hug didn't you?"

"I don't want to talk about it"

*cough* Drawing attention to himself Kakashi gave them his trademark eyesmile "First of all, I'm very sorry that you had to witness that Sasuke-kun. Secondly I'm happy to see that all of you decided to show up, I lied when I said that this was up to each of you individually, this is a test that can only be taken by teams of three. If one of you hadn't shown up I would have sent the others away."

He paused for a moment and looked over the three genin standing before him and smiled. "I'm proud of you guys and I know that you'll do well"

Smiling in return Team 7 walked past him and through the doors.

**And so the fun's about to begin, I've got some ideas for the Chunin Exam that hopefully won't be to cannonesque. I guess I'll just see how it goes. Till next time later y'all.**


End file.
